Wind Tunnel Wake Measurements of Floating Offshore Wind Turbines

This paper reports the results of a wake measurement campaign carried out at Politecnico di Milano wind tunnel to support current studies of the authors about unsteady aerodynamics of floating offshore wind turbines (FOWT) as well as evaluating experimental evidence for wind farm applications of FOWT. The wind turbine scale model adopted for these tests is the 1/75 DTU 10 MW wind turbine developed for the LIFES50+ project. In this study, imposed surge motions, at different frequencies and amplitudes, were provided at the base of the turbine's tower, to investigate the influence of motion on the wake. Results reported show good agreement with the state-of-the-art of wind turbines wake aerodynamics in steady conditions; concerning the unsteady conditions (imposed motion) interesting data are reported and collected with respect to a "wake reduced frequency" parameter which is, according to the authors, a straightforward value to estimate the "level" of unsteadiness connected to a specific dynamic condition due to floating motion. Interesting and consistent phenomena are observed and commented, although opening to the need of further experimental and numerical investigations.