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Fatigue Damage Analysis of a Fixed Offshore

Wind Turbine Supporting Structure

Chapter · January 2014

DOI: 10.1201/b15813-51

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 Developments in Maritime Transportation and Exploitation of Sea Resources –
Guedes Soares & López Peña (eds)
© 2014 Taylor & Francis Group, London, ISBN 978-1-138-00124-4

Fatigue damage analysis of a fixed offshore wind turbine

supporting structure

B. Yeter, Y. Garbatov & C. Guedes Soares

Centre for Marine Technology and Engineering (CENTEC), Instituto Superior Técnico,
Technical University of Lisbon, Lisbon, Portugal

ABSTRACT:  The objective of this work is to analyse a fixed offshore wind turbine supporting ­structure,
which involves an iterative procedure that encompasses the integration of sea, wind and current load and
soil interaction prediction methods, finite element and fatigue analyses. A tripod structure designed to
support a wind turbine of 5 MW is analysed. A structural integrity analysis of the supporting structure is
made under various loading scenarios for different operational modes. Critical hotspot locations, which
experience the most cumulative fatigue damage, are analysed based on FEM and the S-N fatigue approach.
A two-parameter Weibull distribution is used to fit the long-term statistical distribution of hotspots stress
ranges of representative environmental conditions in operational condition of the wind turbine.

1  Introduction especially in deeper water (Energy, 2010), allowing

During the last decade, awareness has increased
about the change in climatic conditions world-
wide, which in collaboration with the chronically
inevitable exhaustion of petroleum resources and
the remaining ore energy resources such as coal
and lignite, has increased interest in renewable
energy resources. Both in research and at an indus-
trial production stage, efforts are being made to
gradually adopt renewable energy resources that
are going to be exempt from any environmental
consequences.
Offshore wind power is a domestic, sustainable
and largely untapped energy resource that provides
an alternative to fossil fuels, helps reduce carbon
emissions, and decreases the economic and supply
risks associated with reliance on imported fuels.
Today, the modern offshore wind turbine offers
competitive production prices for renewable energy
and is therefore a key technology in achieving the
energy and climate goals of the future (Bagbanci
et al., 2012). Therefore, there are strong politi-
cal and industrial interests, especially in northern
Europe, which support the development of the off-
shore wind industry.
It is estimated that a wind turbine in an offshore
environment can generate 50% more electricity
than one of a similar nominal capacity located
onshore, since wind energy production increases
proportionally to the wind velocity (BERR, 2008)
which is mostly undisturbed offshore. This is due
to the fact that offshore there are no obstacles
and that water has a smoother surface than land,
a more steady flow to reach the turbine interface
since offshore wind flow is less turbulent due to
smaller temperature variations.
Despite the above encouraging facts, onshore
wind farms are expected to produce the vast
majority of the EU’s renewable electricity by
2020 (EWEA, 2009). Investments in wind farms
during 2009 have attracted 88.5% of total energy
investments (EWEA, 2010). This is caused by
the high construction costs of offshore wind
farms, especially for the foundation and grid
connection parts (EEA, 2009), and the limited
access for operation and maintenance which can
drive down their service life availability. There-
fore, in order to substantially contribute to long-
term targets it is an essential requirement to
make this industry more economically efficient
by optimizing turbine design, substructures, and
infrastructures.
The support structure contributes greatly to
the cost-effectiveness of installations, especially in
deep waters. Offshore fixed wind turbines with a
gravity base, monopile and tripod foundations are
primarily used in shallow water depths of 20–30 m,
while research is on-going for larger water depths,
such as 40 to 100 m where jacket structures are
commonly used in the oil and gas sector. Cur-
rently, jacket substructures are in an early stage
of development for use in offshore wind and
have good potential to become a preferred solu-
tion through the development of the industry and
methods employed for mass fabrication and instal-
lation (Seidel, 2007).

415
 For water depths greater than 20 m, a ­tripod is
taken to be the most appropriate way of ­foundation.
The tripod support structure is the one that has
more compatibility for intermediate water depth
than the others. It is mostly used between a depth of
30 m and 50 m. The first wind turbine with tripod
base was installed at Nogersund in Sweden and soon
after tripod based supporting structures had gained
a huge popularity. Tripod bases have the advantage
that they need little or no scour protection compared
to the previously mentioned types of foundations.
For offshore wind turbines, the dynamic
response is more significant than that of tradi-
tional platforms used in the offshore petroleum
industry due to the wind loads effect. The fatigue
load and the number of load cycles to be consid-
ered are much higher than those in the traditional
platforms. The contribution to fatigue damage
of welded multi-planar tubular joints from wind
loads can exceed 60%, and the number of stress
cycles due to wind and wave loads in a year can
exceed 7 × 107 cycles. Thus, the fatigue perform-
ance of welded connections is a design-driving cri-
terion for many structural details of offshore wind
turbine support structures, and fatigue reliability
analysis is desirable and necessary.
In the offshore oil and gas industry, fatigue crite-
ria have been of a special concern for fixed offshore
platforms since the early 1970s. It is an important
consideration for the design of structures in areas
with continuous storm loading and especially for
dynamically sensitive structures.
The principal objective of this work is to carry
out a fatigue analysis of welded tubular joints of
offshore wind turbine support structures, namely a
tripod structure designed to support a wind turbine
of 5 MW. This study is necessary to aid decision-
making using reliability analysis to achieve an opti-
mal balance of the different safety measures by
carrying out design and inspection planning.
The environmental loads during the service life
of the offshore structures have a random nature
in terms of amplitude, position and direction.
Therefore the structural components of wind tur-
bine supporting structures are subjected to a great
variety of stress ranges. Critical hotspot locations,
which experience most cumulative fatigue dam-
age, are analysed based on the long-term stress
ranges as a function of different environmental
conditions.
A joint probabilistic model of wind speed, sig-
nificant wave height and spectral peak period in
the North Atlantic is used to simulate the occur-
rence frequencies of environmental loads. A two-
parameter Weibull distribution is used to fit the
long-term hotspot stress ranges of representative
environmental conditions (wind, current and wind
states) in the operation of the wind turbine.
416
The fatigue damage approach that is used to
assess the structure is the Palmgren-Miner linear
cumulative damage approach (Palmgren, 1924),
commonly known as Miner’s Rule.
2  Finite Element Analysis
2.1  Quasi-static analysis
The design of offshore structures is based on a
combination of Finite Element Method (FEM)
analysis and the design standards (API, 1993a).
The methodology that is followed involves the
generation of an initial finite element model of the
structure, which takes into account the soil struc-
ture interaction and the loads acting on the struc-
ture in two different case studies. A quasi-static
analysis is applied and design is modified through
an iterative process in order to efficiently utilize
material properties in Table 1.
A finite element structural model has been built
in the commercial software ANSYS (Ansys, 2009)
as shown in Figure 1. The maximum displacement
and von Misses stresses are the key variables of the
design process that involves several iterations on
the dimensions of structural members and mate-
rial attributes (see Table 2).
A refined mesh of the intersection points
between the braces and the central column is used
to analyse the stress concentrations. Figure 2 shows
Table 1.  Material properties for steel and soil.
Material properties Steel Soil
Young’s modulus (E) 210 GPa 75 GPa
Shear modulus (G) 80.8 GPa –
8,500 kg/m3 –
Density (ρ)
355 MPa –
Yield stress (σy)
Poisson’s coefficient (ν) 0.3 0.3
Horizontal subgrade – 10 MN/m3
reaction (nh)
Figure 1.  Finite element model of whole structure.
Table  2.  Principal characteristics of structural Table 3.  Stiffness of springs.
members.
Stiffness Horizontal Vertical
Length Diameter Thickness (N/m) springs springs
(m) (m) (m)
8 m from base line 8.00E+8 –
Tower 90 18 m from base line 1.80E+9 –
Top wall 4 0.016 23 m from base line 2.30E+9 –
Base wall 7.5 0.030 On the bottom of pile – 5.86E+6
Transition piece 10 0.040
Top wall 7.5
Base wall 9
Central column 37 is ­subjected to forces because of the presence of
Top wall 9 0.068 waves and current.
Base wall 8 0.028 The aerodynamic load acting on the top of the
Braces 32.28 2.4 0.038 tower is defined as can be seen in Table 4. In this
Bases interior 19.785 2.1 0.030 load case, the wind speed of v = 12 m/s is assumed
Base’s exterior 40.624 0.8 0.016 as an extreme aerodynamic load case for which the
Piles 35 4.8 0.040 structure is designed.
Offshore wind turbines operate in harsh envi-
ronmental conditions including wind, wave, cur-
rent, marine growth, earthquake, ice and snow
and temperature induced loads. Wave and current
induced loads are modelled as pressure in the finite
element model.
For the purpose of the analysis presented here,
the Morison equation is employed, since offshore
fixed structures are considered to be drag domi-
nated. The Morison equation assumes that the
total wave forces acting on a structure can be calcu-
lated by a linear superimposition of the drag and
inertia forces (Hsu, 1984), where the total force due
to wave is calculated as:
Figure 2.  Refined mesh on joint of brace/chord. →
→
0 →→
2∂ u
→ 1 1
F= ∫ 2 CD ρD u u + 4 CM πρD ∂t ⋅ dz (1)
the whole meshed part of the structure and the −d
refined mesh on the intersection region between
the central column and the braces. where FD is the drag force, FI is the inertia force,
The boundary conditions have been applied to CD is the drag coefficient, CM is the coefficient of
the foundation structure, which includes only piles virtual mass, ρ is the mass density of water, D is
→
penetrated into the soil. In order to have more real- the diameter,
→
u is the velocity of water particle
istic results the soil is not modelled as totally fixed and ∂ u / ∂t is the local water particle acceleration.
and is considered as mud, due to the fact that the For smooth cylinders, API (1993) recommends
soil shows a slippery and flexible property. the use of 0.65 for CD and 1.6 for CM . A study of
For each node of the pile, depending on its loca- the uncertainties involved can be found in Guedes
tion, either a spring element with ksv in a vertical Soares and Moan (1983).
direction or ksh in a horizontal direction has been The Stokes wave theory is the most commonly
mounted. For this study, dense sand characteristics used in the analysis of offshore structures because
have been selected in order to obtain ksh (Prakash, of its accuracy in predicting the kinematic proper-
1990). The results are listed in Table 3. ties of the wave (Wilson, 2003). For the reference
During the wind turbine operation, the struc- application, wave height, H and period, T have
ture is subjected to several loads, which can be to be selected and in the case of 10.6 m and 9.6
modelled as a function of the location they affect. sec respectively they correspond to the third-order
At the top of the tower the mass of the nacelle, Stokes theory (ODE, 2007).
turbine and aerodynamic forces due to the opera- The wind load applied to the turbine tower com-
tion of the turbine are applied, along the tower prises of the effects of the direct wind pressure on
wind load is applied and on submerged structure the tower and the wind turbine. The obstruction to

417
 Table 4.  Extreme aerodynamic load.

Fx(N) Fy(N) Fz(N) Mx(Nm) My(Nm) Mz(Nm)

v = 12 m/s 1.15E+6 8.2E+4 -3.5E+6 5.3E+6 -1.3E+7 -4.1E+6

the free flow of the wind by a structure produces Table 5.  Buckling modes.
a differential pressure, which results in wind forces.
The general wind force on a rigidly held, horizon- Buckling
tal, circular cylinder may be calculated as: Buckling Buckling moment for
force for 1st force for 2nd 3rd loading
SET loading (N) loading (N) (Nm)
1
F ( z) = CD ρSUG ( z )2 (2)
2 Buckling 1.14E+08 1.04E+07 2.39E+08
mode1
where CD is the drag coefficient, ρ is the density Buckling 1.14E+08 1.04E+07 2.39E+08
of air (1.2 kg/m3), S is the frontal area (facing the mode2
wind), z is the depth location and UG ( z ) is the gust Buckling 1.90E+08 1.10E+07 2.42E+08
wind speed at z. The gust wind speed is defined mode3
as the average wind speed over a time interval of Buckling 1.91E+08 1.12E+07 2.43E+08
mode4
3 seconds measured at an elevation of 10 m above
Buckling 1.91E+08 1.17E+07 2.46E+08
SWL and can be estimated as: mode5
0.1
 z
UG ( z ) = UG (10 ) ⋅   (3)
 10  loads at the point where the structure becomes

unstable and the buckled modes are the character-
where UG (10 ) is the gust wind speed at 10 m above istic shape associated with the structural buckling
still water line. response (Zaccaria, 2011) (see Table 5).
Current force refers to the force that is induced In the present analysis, the material non-line-
in the offshore support structure by the movement arity has been neglected and the first five critical
of water from external sources, other than those of buckling loads based on load cases that refer to the
surface waves, and it contributes significantly to the conditions of the offshore wind turbine have been
total force exerted on the offshore support struc- calculated. The analysed load cases are defined as
ture (Wilson, 2003). The loads due to the water cur- operational and extreme wind conditions. During
rent dependent on the square of the velocity of the the extreme load condition the rotor is considered
current and similar to the wind loads is calculated as parked. In the operating condition, the weight
using the drag coefficients of members. The current of the turbine and nacelle, and the wind force and
force on a rigidly held, horizontal, circular cylinder moment due to the operation of the turbine are con-
of diameter, D may be calculated as follows: sidered. In the extreme wind condition, the weights
of the turbine and nacelle and wind force on top of
1 the structure are considered. Therefore these three
F ( z) = CD ρ Dlu( z )2 (4)
2 loads are modelled separately.
The results for each loading with 5 buckling modes
where, CD is the drag coefficient, ρ is the density related to the three leading causes are given Table 5.
of water, l is the length, z is the depth location (a Figure 3 shows the first buckling mode of the first
negative number measured downward from the sea load case (LC1), which presents an ordinary operat-
surface) and u ( z ) is the current velocity at z. ing condition, including environmental and opera-
tional loads when the wind has a velocity of 12 m/s.
2.2  Linear buckling analysis
2.3  Free vibration analysis
Structural buckling is characterized by a sud-
den failure of a structural component subjected Free vibration analysis is performed to determine
to compressive load, where the actual compres- the natural frequencies and mode shapes of the
sive stress at the point of failure is less than the structure. Material non-linearity has not been used
yield compressive stress that the material is capa- for this type and additionally instead of spring sys-
ble of withstanding. Thus, the buckling analysis tem in the soil-structure interaction, the fixed body
­determines the buckling loads, which are critical condition has been applied.

418
Figure 3.  Mode Shape 1, LC 1. Figure  5.  Von Misses stresses in brace and central
­column intersection area.

current loads are calculated separately and then

­combined using a decoupled analysis method. The
decoupled analysis is based on the assumption that
the phasing of wind and wave loads are stochastic
and non-correlated. This study, mainly considers
the normal operation condition of wind turbine,
which is also defined as the design load case DLC
1.2 in (IEC, 2009).
The present study assumes that the wind and
waves are always from the same direction, and that
only one direction is considered for all sea states
Figure 4.  Mode 1 with turbine and nacelle. in the ­operational condition of the offshore wind
turbine.
A global harmonic analysis in the frequency
Table 6.  Modal analysis of support structure. domain has been running in the range of 0 to 2 Hz.
The wave-induced load used for this analysis is
Natural frequency (Hz) taken as a quasi-static one. Figure 5 shows the von
Misses stresses in a given frequency range to the
Support structure Support structure & point where the brace and central column joined
(tower & foundation) turbine & nacelle and where the maximum stress occurs.
MODE1 0.66019 0.29583
MODE2 0.66058 0.29595
MODE3 1.5836 1.4351
3  Fatigue Analysis
MODE4 1.6206 1.4596
MODE5 1.6215 1.4606 Welded structures made of steel or other metals
subjected to cyclic loads can initiate microscopic
cracks which gradually increase in size, after a
certain number of cycles has been experienced, to
At first, only tower and foundation are taken become so large that fracture occurs. The core rea-
in consideration. Afterwards to have a better idea son of fatigue arises from the stress concentration
of the natural frequency of the offshore wind tur- along with the cyclic loading. Fatigue is a process
bine and to make a possible comparison with other of cycle-by-cycle accumulation of damage in a
offshore wind turbines, the weight of the blades, structure subjected to fluctuating stresses, going
hub and nacelle are added. Since the parts of the through several stages from the initial “crack-free”
turbine were not designed in ANSYS, a thick plate state to a “failure” state.
as heavy as the turbine on top is used instead (see The magnitude of the fluctuating loading required
Fig. 4 and Table 6). to induce fatigue cracking may be much less than that
the required one to cause failure under a single load
application. The initiation and growth of fatigue
2.4  Global harmonic analysis
cracks depend on the stress range which is defined as
The global dynamic response of the wind tur- the difference between the maximum and minimum
bine supporting structures due to wind, wave and stress in a stress cycle and the number of load cycles.

419
3.1  S-N approach
The fatigue analysis of welded components includes
different approaches based on various types of
stresses. The three main steps in the direct analysis
of the fatigue damage of wind-turbine supporting
structures address the wave, wind and current-
induced load and soil interaction, the structural
analysis and the Palmgren-Miner (Palmgren, 1924)
or fracture mechanics approach. The approaches
used to calculate the fatigue strength of welded
components using the Palmgren-Miner approach
can be subdivided into three types: the nominal,
hotspot and notch stress approaches (Hobbacher,
2009). Nowadays new approaches based on the
notch stress formulation are developed such as the
one of Xiao and Yamada (2004).
The hot spot stress approach uses the hot spot
or geometric stress that includes all stress-rising
effects of the structural detail but excluding all
stress concentrations due to the weld profile itself.
With this approach, it is possible to predict the
fatigue lives of different joint configurations using
a single S-N curve.
However, for obtaining an accurate assessment
of the stress response the hot spot stress approach
is applied based on the Finite Element (FE) method
and its characteristics instead of the nominal
stress approach. The hot spot stress approach, for
structural details, has been formulated for fatigue
design (Hobbacher, 2009). The hot spot stress is
defined as local stress obtained by extrapolating
stresses at certain distances away from a geomet-
ric discontinuous area such as a weld toe. Some of
the limitations of the hot spot stress approach are
that the notch stresses caused by the weld beads
are excluded from the total stresses.
Radaj et al. (2009) developed the effective notch
stress approach by introducing fictitious effec-
tive notches of radius 1 mm to weld toe or weld
root. Further studies have been performed and
the notch stress approach has been included in the
IIW fatigue design recommendations (Hobbacher,
2009).
Offshore wind turbine support structures have
been built of welded tubular joints all over and in
this study is modelled by shell finite elements. The
hot spots considered in the fatigue assessment are
located at the toes of the weld on both the chord
and the brace sides of the weld (ABS, 2003).
Fatigue analysis is based on local structural
response as a function of the global and local
loads. The global structural analysis is carried out
by a finite element model with a relatively coarse
mesh. Sophisticated finite element models can pre-
dict the local stress response but typical hierarchi-
cal multilevel modelling is used where a lower level
global model is used for calculating the load and
420
boundary condition for the high level local model.
The accuracy of calculating local stress is governed
not only by the mesh density of the local finite ele-
ment model but also by the accuracy of the loads
applied to the local model (Garbatov et al., 2010).
The aim of the local finite element analysis is
normally not to calculate directly the stress at a
detail, but to calculate the stress distribution in
the region of the hot spot. These stresses are used
as a basis for derivation of the geometric stress
concentration factors (Chakarov et al., 2008). The
stress concentration due to the geometrical effect
of the actual detail is calculated by means of a
fine mesh model using shell elements with proper
element size, resulting in a geometric SCF factor
­(DNV-RP-C203, 2010).
The SCF is obtained from the resulting
hotspot and nominal stresses using the follows
relationship:
∆σ hotspot = SCF × ∆σ nominal (5)
The finite element method is used for analysing
the hot spot stresses here applying the linear static
analysis capabilities of ANSYS. The stresses and
their distributions depend on the element size and
properties, which makes it necessary to follow some
guidelines on the choice of the element type and
size as well on the stress evaluation at the extrapo-
lation points (IIW, 2007). A practical, relatively
coarse mesh can be applied if certain conditions
are fulfilled, or else a relatively fine mesh must be
generated as has been shown in the guideline on
meshing and stress evaluation using surface stress
extrapolation (IIW, 2007).
The mesh pattern of the hot spots is modelled
so that the actual hotspots can be found, and the
first principal stresses can be determined by an
extrapolation at this location. In a tubular welded
joint subjected to uniaxial membrane stress, the
location of the hotspot may be obvious. However,
where the loading introduces bending stresses and
the weld is curved around attachment corners, the
location of the hotspot may be less obvious and for
that the mesh pattern should allow the determina-
tion of structural stresses at all potential locations.
The element size generated in the hotspot area
is of size t × t and it is used to define the stresses
at the extrapolation points at a distance 0.5 t and
1.5 tfrom the hotspot (IIW, 2007). Several condi-
tions have to be satisfied to perform an acceptable
analysis such as that there are not severe disconti-
nuities in the vicinity and the stress gradient close
to the hot spot is not extremely high.
For the finite element analysis a Shell93 8-node
finite element is used. The Shell93 element is
particularly well suited to model curved shells.
The element has six degrees of freedom at each
node—transition in x, y and z direction and rota-
tions about the nodal x, y and z axes. The deflection
shapes are quadratic in both in-plane directions.
The element has plasticity, stress stiffening, large
deflection and large strain capabilities.
To define the stress distribution around the
hotspots two types of modelling approaches are
applied here. The First Approach (A1) is based on
a direct calculation where the mesh is generated in
such way that a relatively rough Element Size (ES1)
is used in the zones away from the hotspot and a
finer Element Size (ES2) for the analysed hotspots.
The second approach (A2) is based on the appli-
cation of sub-model techniques, having an element
size of t × t (ES3), generated all around structure,
which leads to better results but at the same time
requires the use of more complicated modelling
techniques.
The fatigue analysis is based on the use of
fatigue design S-N curves, which are obtained
from fatigue tests. The fatigue design S-N curves
are based on the mean-minus-two-standard-
­deviation curves to relevant experimental data.
The S-N curves are thus associated with a 97.7%
probability of survival (DNV-RP-C203, 2010).
The fatigue strength of welded joints is to some
extent dependent on plate thickness. This effect is
due to the local geometry of the weld toe in rela-
tion to the thickness of the adjoining plates. The
thickness effect is accounted for by a modification
on stress such that the design S-N curve for thick-
ness larger than the reference thickness. With this
modification on S-N curve it becomes as in the fol-
lowing (DnV, 2010):
  t  
k
log( N ) = log a − m ⋅ log  ∆σ    (6)
  tref  
where N is the predicted the number of cycles
to failure for stress range ∆σ , m is the negative
inverse of S-N curve and log a is the intercept of
log N axis by S-N curve. For tubular joints the
reference thickness is 32 mm. k is the thickness
exponent on fatigue strength as given in tables
with other parameters, based on DNV (2010), k
is selected as 0.25.
The use of one slope S-N curve leads to more
conservative results of calculated fatigue live (with
a slope of the curve at N < 106 to 107 cycles) (DNV-
RP-C203, 2010).
Four appropriate S-N curves for tubular joints
are employed. FAT90 (SN1) stands for the load
carrying capacity joints and FAT100 (SN2) stands
for non-load carrying capacity joints. In the case of
using of high strength steel, DNV_H-S S-N (SN3)
421
is used and in the case of the presence of corrosive
environment, DNV_T (SN4) is applied.
3.2  Fatigue damage assessment
Fatigue damage analysis of wind turbine ­supporting
structures is based on the structural response of
welded joints subjected to wind, wave, current and
soil interaction induced loading. The long term
distribution of loading is estimated as the weighted
sum of the individual short term stress response
distributions over all the load states weighted with
the relative occurrence of each combination of
them (Almar-Naess, 1985). This approach is based
on the assumption that the stress time process rela-
tive to each load state is stationary, Gaussian and
narrow band.
If the long-term Weibull distribution of the
stress range is approximated by a histogram with
blocks of stress cycles of a constant stress range,
the damage can be estimated using the Discrete
Approach (DA) as follows:
k
n
D= ∑ Ni (7)
i i
where k is the number of stress blocks,ni is the
number of stress cycles in stress block i, Ni is the
number of stress cycles to failure at stress range
∆σ i The number of blocks should be large enough
to insure reasonable numerical accuracy and in the
study number of block is taken 100 (Almar-Naess,
1985).
When the long-term stress range is defined by
the Weibull distributions, and a one-slope S-N
curve is used, the Closed-Form Approach (CFA)
can be employed to assess fatigue damage as (Nolte
and Hansford, 1976):
v0Td
( q ) m Γ  1 + 
m
D= (8)
a h
where Td is design life in seconds, v0 is zero ­crossing
frequency, q is scale and h is shape parameter of
Weibull stress range distribution and Γ(1 + ( m /h ))is
the Gamma function.
When the long-term stress range is estimated
based on a series of short-term stationary states,
through the assumption of a Gaussian and narrow
band process, where the amplitudes are fitted to the
Rayleigh probability density function and a linear
S-N curve is used then fatigue damage using the
Spectral Approach (SA) is defined as (ABS, 2003):
allseastates m
D=
v0Td 
a. 
m
Γ  1+ 
h
∑
i=1
(
li 2 2 m0,i ) (9)
where m0,i is the zero moment of any state, li e­ lement analysis by using the first principal stresses
is the relative number of stress cycles which is along the hotspot region are given in Figure 8.
defined as: Using the stress concentration factor defined
from the local analysis and the nominal stress from
v0,i pi the global analysis, the hotspot stress needed for the
li = (10) fatigue damage assessment is calculated. The long
∑ piv0,i term stress range is defined as a two-­parameter
Weibull distribution with parameters obtained
where pi is the probability of occurrence of each through spectral approach.
state. Table  7 shows that the spectral approach and
closed-form expression are very close in their
prediction of fatigue damage, but the discrete
4  Results approach gives considerably less fatigue damage in
comparison with other approaches. Usage of more
There are two load cases used in the present blocks would expect to give better results.
analysis. The First Load Case (LC1) presents an Offshore wind turbine is operating in a very
ordinary operational condition, which includes corrosive environment, especially parts of the
environmental and operational loads when the
wind has a velocity of 12 m/s. In the Second Load
Case (LC2) a survival condition is presented and
only extreme wind and wave conditions are con-
sidered since the offshore wind turbine is parked.
After analysing both cases, it has been observed
that LC1 demonstrates the worst loading scenario.
Therefore, stresses obtained from this case are used
to perform fatigue damage assessment.
Hotspot stresses at critical hotspots located
along the brace and chord through the first prin-
cipal stress are shown in Figure 6. The local SCF
analysis is performed by using a sub-model as
illustrated in Figure  7. Because of the symmetry,
only one-third of Y joint is modelled. Symmetry
boundary conditions are applied to the plane of
symmetry and the ends of the brace and bottom Figure 7.  Sub-model of joint of brace/chord.
of the chord are modelled as fixed.
The applied load is in the form of forces on
nodes exerted on the top of the chord assuming all
the nodes are under unit pressure. The local finite
element models vary in terms of the radius of the
fillet on the join, which are 0.14 m (D1), 0.2 m
(D2) and 0.35 m (D3). All models have the ele-
ment size of t × t throughout the whole sub-model.
Therefore, the SCF is obtained through local finite

Figure 8.  Path along hotspot region.

Table 7.  Fatigue damage assessment.

h q D D(corr) Life, yrs.

DA 1.083 7.844 0.035 0.062 402

CFA 1.083 7.844 0.472 0.757 33
SA 1.083 7.813 0.467 0.749 33.4
Figure 6.  1st principle stresses in hotspot region.

422
Table  8.  The models created for fatigue damage Weibull distribution is used to fit the long-term
assessment. distribution of hotspot stress ranges. The fatigue
damage is performed using several S-N curves and
Element Radius of S-N it was concluded that the FAT90 (DNV_T in air)
Models Approach size fillet curves
S-N curve is the most suitable.
M1 A1 ES1 – SN1 Corrosive environment of offshore wind turbine
M2 A1 ES2 – SN1 during the operation is also considered and the
M3 A1 ES2 D3 SN1 final fatigue damage and fatigue life have been also
M4 A2 ES3 D1 SN1 evaluated.
M5 A2 ES3 D2 SN1
M6 A2 ES3 D3 SN1
M7 A2 ES3 D3 SN2 References
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