A HYDROELASTIC ANALYSIS OF A BEAM-CONNECTED MULTI-BODY FLOATING STRUCTURE FOR SOLAR POWER PLANT IN WAVES

Abstract

The hydrodynamic performance of a floating solar energy converter system in waves is analyzed considering elastic behaviors of connector structures in this study. The converter system is composed of hundreds of floating concrete blocks to support photovoltaic modules. The slender elastic connector structure combines the floaters into a large unit system. The floating solar power converter system keeps its position by using mooring system. To assure structural integrity as well as operability of the system in waves, both the frequency-domain and time-domain approaches are adopted to analyze hydroelastic behaviors of the system. In numerical formulation, HOBEM (Higher Order Boundary Element Method) is applied tofloating body part and FEM (Finite Element Method) was applied to connector beams and mooring lines. HOBEM is a highly accurate and efficient method in analysis of multi-body hydrodynamic interactions. The frequency domain analysis is powerful in parametric design stage because it provides relatively simple and fast calculations. In specific cases, time domain analysis is required to see the results in detail for transient behavior coupled with mooring lines, and for nonlinear large amplitude and low frequency motion responses due wave drift forces under harsh environments. In the present study, the frequency-domain analysis is implemented which is useful for structural optimization design process while the tim