Tragverhalten von Offshore Gründungskonstruktionen

Structural behaviour of offshore support structures - Computational and experimental analysis

This paper contains a summary of the joint research project "OGOWIN: Optimisation of support structures for offshore wind turbines regarding the material consumption, the construction and production sequence as well as new production methodologies". The results comprise (1) a modal analyses of various types of offshore wind turbine support structures, (2) the fatigue strength testing of the cast steel material, (3) a large scale ultimate capacity test of a cast steel tube connection and (4) an optimisation of the tube connection aiming at material and stress reduction. The sensitivity of the relevant parameters on the first natural frequencies was quantified and the most influencing parameters were identified. The analyses of the fatigue strength and of the ultimate capacity of the cast steel tube connection support an optimised design by precise knowledge of the failure mechanisms and material behaviour. Moreover, it is shown that optimising the cast steel node can reduce the material use and stress concentration.