State of the art model testing techniques for floating wind turbines

After the present generation shallow water fixed wind turbines, floating wind turbines are considered to be the next step in development of offshore wind energy. To ensure safe and economically feasible designs, model tests are often used for validating and optimizing the floater design before construction starts. This is common practice in the oil&gas offshore market. A key point of model testing floating wind turbines is that wind and waves are present simultaneously in the basin. This makes it possible to correctly study the complex motions and loads of the rotating turbine on a moving platform in wind and waves.
In this paper two new developments are further discussed: the development and testing of a new high-quality wind generator in MARIN's Offshore Basin; and the development of a scaled down wind turbine, similar to the well-known 5MW NREL turbine.