The Influence of the Tower and Nacelle in Actuator Line Simulations of Floating Offshore Wind Turbines

Journal article

The platform motions of floating offshore wind turbines generate unsteady wake dynamics that affect downstream power production and fatigue loading. Modelling floating wind farm performance therefore requires an improved understanding of these wake dynamics. However, the aerodynamic influence of the tower and nacelle is commonly neglected in numerical simulations. This study has two objectives: (i) identify the influence of the tower and nacelle on wake dynamics for different platform motions, and (ii) quantify the ability of lower-fidelity meshless methods as a means to avoid costly dynamic meshing. The results demonstrate that while blade-scale effects associated with the tower and nacelle are not fully resolved by lower-fidelity methods, the dominant platform-induced wake dynamics are captured well. Furthermore, the impact of the tower and nacelle model on wake coherence appears to depend on the platform motion degree of freedom: for the motion frequencies and amplitudes explored, inclusion of the model amplifies wake meandering for rolling, while pitching-induced wake dynamics are largely unaffected.

Authors: Green, D; Zormpa, M; Vogel, C

• Publication status: Published
• Peer review status: Peer reviewed
• Publisher: IOP Publishing
• Journal: Journal of Physics: Conference Series
• Volume: 3224
• Issue: 3
• Pages: 032090
• Article number: 032090
• Publication date: 2026-05-01
• DOI: 10.1088/1742-6596/3224/3/032090
• EISSN: 1742-6596
• ISSN: 1742-6588
• Language: English