Designing cost-effective mooring systems for FWTs is challenging for both shallow and deep water. In shallow water, hundreds of meters of chain per turbine may be required to survive storms, or heavy chain may be needed to minimize the platform motions and protect the power cable. Also in very deep water the cost of material becomes high. Therefore, several industry stakeholders have highlighted that understanding the design drivers for mooring systems is crucial. Assessing novel mooring designs, including new materials, innovative methods of sharing anchors, or even floater-to-floater moorings, requires improved analysis methods. 

WP1 will address these issues through the following objectivehs:  

• Create and publish an open FOWT model 
• Investigate new material models for synthetic fibre ropes in mooring  

• Apply automated optimisation to perform mooring design and to investigate design drivers  
• Apply calibrated low-frequency wave loads from WP 3 for more accurate determination of mooring loads 
• Investigate system modelling methods for farm mooring for floating wind turbines  

WP1 Manager Research Scientist Marit Kvittem