Aerodynamic Characterization of a Floating Offshore Wind Turbine under Pitch Motion

The marine platform’s pitch motion significantly impacts the unstable aerodynamic properties and interfering impacts of the floating offshore wind turbines (FOWT). This study utilizes Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) and dynamic mesh technologies to systematically evaluate the impact of pitch motion amplitude and frequency on the wind turbine’s aerodynamic loads. It gives a detailed investigation of the differences in angle of attack (AOA) caused by pitch motion. The findings demonstrate that the pitching motion modifies the blade’s AOA distribution via the spreading direction, changing the lift coefficients of the airfoils of each cross-section, thus affecting the torque and power output. Furthermore, analyzing the effect of pitch motion amplitude as well as frequency on the wind turbine’s wake velocity field, It has been observed that when pitch motion frequency as well as amplitude increase, the velocity recovered by the wake velocity field accelerates.