Ultimate and accidental limit state design for mooring systems of floating offshore wind turbines

The paper deals with the catenary mooring system design for tri-floater floating offshore wind turbines. Both ultimate (ULS) and accidental (ALS) limit states are examined, under 50 and 1 year return period environmental loads. Both power production and parked wind turbine conditions are analysed; for the former the ULS is applied, for the latter both ULS and ALS are considered. The platform static demand is assessed in terms of turbine thrust, wind, current and wave steady drift forces. The dynamic offset is determined considering both wave and low-frequency motions. Mooring patterns with 6, 9 and 12 chain cable and steel wire rope lines are considered. Water depth incidence is examined in the range between 50 and 300m and the mooring system is dimensioned so that the relevant weight is determined. The Dutch tri-floater is assumed as reference structure and three candidate sites in the Southern Mediterranean Sea are considered. It is found that platform admissible offset and line pattern significantly influence the mooring system weight; obtained results show that 9 and 12 line configurations are the necessary choice and the mooring line weight is independent of water depth between 100 and 200m, while increases out of this range. •Ultimate and accidental limit state design of mooring lines.•Floating offshore wind turbines with tri-floater support structure.•Platform static response assessed in terms of wind, wave and drift forces.•Platform wave and low-frequency second order motions.•Chain cable and wire rope mooring line design and optimization.