Mooring System Integrity Management through Monitoring, Digital Twin and Control Technologies for Cost reduction and Increased Efficiency

Mooring systems are considered critical components due to their impact in the stability, structural design and dynamics of the Floating Offshore Wind (FOW) turbine and the associated risk of collapse of the whole system in case of failure. Nowadays, Mooring system design in FOW is accomplished by following Oil and Gas standards. However, despite its high safety factors and integrity management plans, failure rates are several orders of magnitude greater than industry targets used to calibrate mooring design codes.

The MooringSense project aims at reducing operational costs (10-15 %) and increasing annual energy production (2-3 %) through the development of an efficient risk-based integrity management strategy for mooring systems. The proposed solution comprises the development of a low-cost smart sensor for FOW turbine motion monitoring, a Mooring System Digital Twin (MSDT) model, Structural Health Monitoring (SHM) techniques, and control strategies at turbine and farm levels for mooring condition management.

The MSDT prototype will consist in high fidelity numerical models calibrated and validated in an Ocean Basin Laboratory; A Smart Motion Sensor prototype based on Global Navigation Satellite System technology; A SHM system prototype developed under a data-driven approach and strategies; control algorithms to reduce dynamic loads and control integrity management strategies.

MooringSense project has received funding from the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 851703. MooringSense is a 36-month project which started in November 2019. It is the intention of the authors to present the project and its main goals, as well as to give an update on the development status and produced achievements.