Coupled aerodynamic and hydrodynamic analyses of upscaled floating offshore wind turbines

As one of the widely used renewable energy sources, wind energy is expected to lead the energy market. A recent trend is to develop bigger wind turbines since upscaled wind turbines' rotor size increases power production and reduces a significant amount of maintenance cost of a wind warm. Especially, due to the dimension of roads used in transportation of the turbine blades and components, there are strict limitations for design of onshore wind turbines. This study aims to investigate aerodynamic and hydrodynamic effects of upscaling of floating wind turbines. For this purpose, NREL 5 MW with OC4DeepCwind semisubmersible floating platform is upscaled up to 10 MW and 15 MW. Performance of the upscaled NREL 5 is compared to IEA 10 MW, and IEA 15 MW wind turbines. The OpenFAST open-source code is used to analyze the aerodynamic effects on the rotor and to carry out coupled analysis of the FOWTs.