Towards the design of artificial surrogates for modelling marine growth

Preprint submitted to RENEW 2024 conference. 

The integration of a primary artificial reef structure as a nature-inclusive design innovation into
the floating structure of a floating offshore wind turbine changes the system dynamics and loading conditions.
Therefore, experimental hydrodynamic analyses, in which the marine growth colonising the artificial reef structure will be modelled using surrogates, are required during the development of such innovation. In this study,
the pertinent literature is reviewed to identify ‘best practice’ for the surrogate design and the characteristics of
marine growth that need to be considered. In addition to the well-established relative surface roughness, several
other characteristics such as shape, texture, and coverage should be considered in the development of surrogates as they significantly influence the flow and hydrodynamic load conditions. As one of the target sites for
the development of the nature-inclusive design, the Baltic Sea has been analysed for the species that dominate
offshore structures and need to be considered in marine growth modelling.