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[ MARINE / IN DETAIL ]

Installation vessel concept for wind turbines

A U T H O R : H e n n i n g v o n We d e l , S e n i o r M e c h a n i c a l E n g i n e e r, W r t s i l D e u t s c h l a n d G m b H

Fig. 1 The High Performance Turbine Istallation Vessel

In recent years, Wrtsil has successfully established a leading position in the design of customized wind turbine installation vessels. The High Performance Turbine Installations Vessel (HPTIV) concept is the latest in this series. This concept is developed in co-operation with Aker Solutions.

Wrtsil has developed numerous designs for installation, feeder, and support vessels on behalf of some of the wind turbine industrys major players. Because of the specic knowledge and requirements of these customers, and Wrtsils capacity for meeting these demands, each of the Wrtsil designs matured into being the best in their class. As the oshore wind segment is fairly new, the requirements and corresponding technical solutions had to be developed from scratch. The limited development time meant that as the operative requirements evolved, the existing designs on the market had to be re-engineered

as the project priorities shifted. This called for a new development; one able to cope with the latest strategies for installing the hundreds of wind turbines in the open sea needed to provide clean energy to the worlds electricity consumers. For that reason, it was extremely important that the concept for the vessels operation was dened beforehand. The project requirements depend largely on the specic conditions under which a wind farm is supposed to be constructed and operated. Furthermore, the investment costs for a huge wind farm project mean that the investor needs to develop, construct, and take into operation the

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wind farm as soon as possible in order to generate sales revenues of electrical energy as soon as possible. All the planning and subsequent logistics must, therefore, be merged into one big plan. In short, the larger the wind farm, the more wind turbines are needed, and the more customized is the approach. Each task involved in serving the wind farm requires a specic vessel solution. This will be even more the case in the future when we are not talking about wind farms near shore, but as far as 150 NM oshore. Also of interest is the variation in water depth. Figure 2 shows that the distance from the coast of wind farms being built now and in the future in northern Europe, will increase, but not so much the water depth. The reason for this is obvious; deeper water requires a lot more strength and steel in the foundation of a single turbine, while the distance to the coast does not have a signicant cost impact when a reliable and suciently large power-grid exists. This part of

the infrastructure development is the responsibility of those countries that decided that the wind farms should be far enough oshore as to be not visible from land. For the vessels helping to install the wind farm, this means that the transport of materials must be done with fast (feeder) vessels, while the installation vessel itself has to be able to withstand adverse weather conditions and provide a strong and reliable platform in limited water depth for the construction. Other considerations include the sea currents at the location, which require such vessels to have capable propulsion and high performance dynamic positioning. Apart from the logistical specications, the vessels available deck space is yet another consideration. Not only does the customer need a large unobstructed stable construction site, but for the transport in particular over longer distances a large deck area to store as much equipment as possible is needed. Modularized foundations and wind turbine sections have to be

Fig. 3 Leg distance of a ship shape construction vessel

Fig. 2 Water depth vs. distance to coast (Source: 4C)

350.0

300.0

250.0 Distance to Coast

200.0

150.0

100.0

50.0

0.0 0.0 50.0 100.0 150.0 Water Depth Concept Consent Application Consent Authorized Under Construction Generating Power 200.0 250.0 300.0

transported to the site at reasonable cost. The investments required for the steel, and for an adequate propulsion and jacking system aboard the vessel, do not increase linearly with the size of the deck space. As a result, a reasonable vessel length varies between 70m and 120m for a pontoon shape, and between 80m to 160m for a ship shape. The width, depending on the size of the locks in the base harbour and access limitations at the repair and shipyard facilities, should be between 32m and 46m. It is easy to calculate the main deck area dimensions using simple multiplication. However, the underwater shape of the vessel imposes limitations as a pointed bow and stern are needed to achieve minimal resistance during transit. Deck space is limited by the positioning of the jacking legs, which obstruct the valuable cargo deck. From gure 3, it can clearly be deducted that a pontoon shape vessel gives more free deck space and exibility for stowing the payload without the need for major investments into the hull design. However, should the vessel need to commute over a longer distance between the construction site and the base harbour, this advantage decreases. Another advantage of a pontoon shape having a length of about 110m and a width of 40m, is its stability. The trajectories of the leg tips (motion, velocities, accelerations), when the vessel is trying to position in heavy seas, is unexpectedly good compared to the same sized ship shape, semi sub, and even SWATH, designs.

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The latest design installation vessels are expected to be able to withstand adverse weather conditions. A so called third generation installation vessel can jack up in signicant wave heights of as much as 2.5m. This enables the vessel to spend more time at the wind farm installing turbines, and the charter costs relating to the number of days on which the vessel is on site, are signicantly reduced. In other words, a vessel capable of staying on site three times the number of days throughout the year has also three times the value for the customer. Looking at the projected limit of 75% operational availability, a vessel capable of taking 2.5m Hs can stay on site for 12 months, whereas a vessel capable of 1.5m SWH only exceeds the 75% limit during the four summer months. This requires a strong and reliable jacking system. To optimize the vessel further, the structural requirements for such a strong vessel require great expertise and good engineering judgement. The more weight that can be saved without reducing the strength, the less material cost, and the more payload can be calculated. Engineering methods have made a giant quality leap forward in recent years. The engineering approach for our new design was done in co-operation with the classication society, and is mainly based on a worst case scenario, with the highest possible payload and worst weather conditions. Naturally, the classication societies provide rules for the design, but in most cases these were made for oating vessels, whereas in our case the worst conditions with regard to strength are to be applied in jacked up conditions.In order to achieve just the necessary structural strength to cope with the dynamic loads of the waves and adequate durability of the vessel with regard to fatigue strength, not only static load cases were analysed, but also dynamic loads as well. The approach was to apply the wave-induced deections of the structure in a time domain simulation, and to calculate the static and dynamic responses from the global model of the vessel, in cluding the non linear interactions (contact) between the jack-up-legs and the vessel. The dierence in the fatigue calculations, leading to a signicant reduction in plate thickness and the respective structural steel weight, was the deduction of a dierent Dynamic Amplication Factor (DAF), as can be seen in gure 7. 38

Fig. 4 Leg trajectories of a pontoon shaped wind turbine installation vessel (Source: IMS)

Average Seastate Prognosis 20112025 Northern Europe 100.0 HS 90.0 Operative Availability [%] 80.0 75% 70.0 60.0 50.0 1.25 m 40.0 30.0 20.0 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 Month 7 8 9 10 11 12 1.00 m 0.75 m z.B. Granebarges Sheerlegs Jack-Up 1. Generation 2.00 m 1.75 m 1.50 m Jack-Up 2. Gen. Weather Window [75%] = 4 Months 3.00 m 2.50 m Weather Window [75%] = 12 Months Jack-Up 3. Gen. 75%

Fig. 5 Operational availability (signicant wave height) over time (Jan-Dec) (Source: IMS)

4.00 3.00 2.00 1.00 0.00 -1.00 -2.00 -3.00 -4.00 200

seaway elevation;

dynamic response;

static response

700

1200

1700

2200

2700

3200 time [sec]

Fig. 6 Dynamic loads and responses of the vessel in an irregular seaway (Source: IMS)

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WRTSIL TECHNICAL JOURNAL 02.2011

The conventional method calls for a DAF of higher than 5, i.e. ve times the maximum load has to be applied in case the structure is excited with its Eigen frequency ( Eigen). However in reality, the structure is never subject to regular waves all in the same frequency, but irregular waves, some of which dampen the movement of the vessel. Thus, a DAF of only little more than 2 was applied. HPTIV - the cutting edge In order to transform all the experience into the optimum design for the application, new ideas and customer input as to the methods and tools was needed. To further maximise the usable deck space, a special crane concept was developed. Traditional designs have to ght the fact that there are always dead spaces behind the legs, and that the crane has a minimum and maximum outreach for high loads. This results in approximately 20% to 40% of deck space being within the main cranes heavy load range reach. The HPTIV crane concept, however, incorporates a crane concept whereby a

seaway elevation; 3,50 2,50 1,50 0,50 0,00 -0,50 -1,50 -2,50 -3,50 -4,50 3170

dynamic response;

static response

Example: Conventional Method: Linear Frequency-Domain Analysis Steady-State Deterministic Response Dynamic Amplication ( = Eigen) DAF = 5.04 New Method: Nonlinear Time-Domain Simulation Steady-State Stochastic Response containing Transient Processes Dynamic Amplication ( = Eigen) DAF = 2.05

3175

3180

3185 3190 time [sec]

Fig. 7 Deduction of the Dynamic Amplication Factor (DAF) for fatigue strength (Source: IMS)

regular 1000t oshore crane is placed on top of a movable gantry foundation. In this way, 100% of the main deck is within reach of the main cranes heavy load range. The concept is developed in co-operation with Aker Solutions where Wrtsil provides the ship design, electrical power

generation, propulsion machinery and high-end automation, and Aker Solutions has developed the jacking system that gives all weather, year round operational capability. This system combines the strength of a truss jacking leg with the robustness and reliability of a hydraulic

Fig. 8 Various types of vessel are needed to install a wind farm. (Source: Vattenfall)

Cable Laying

Installation of Substation Installation of Transition Piece Erection of Windturbine

Safety Standby

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pin and hole system. The jacking pins, which connect the hull of the vessel with the legs, are inserted into holes in the chords of the truss legs (two grip-frames with each having one pin per chord), making a total of six grips per leg and 24 pins per vessel. Another novel development on the market is the Wrtsil Integrated Automation, which allows the owner to operate the vessel under adverse condition with a minimum crew on the bridge. This fully automated fast jacking system (1m/min) is co-ordinated with the Power Management- and the DP system, using up-to-date operations planning with the latest developments in electronics and software design. The Site Plan, with all the restricted areas, is merged with an ECDIS system, weather information, and the ships systems status. This plan enables the operator to act according to a pre-dened schedule and is supported with a conning display, navigation and movement sensor information. It is then staged onto the operators work station. The operator is at all times aware of the
system status and the next actions. Safety information concerning the system limits allows him to be able to execute a complex task in a fast and safe manner. Last but not least, environmentally friendly technologies have been integrated to a maximum extent. Waste Heat recovery helps the customer to save fuel, lower emissions, and full the requirements of using a clean ship for a clean task. The power generation system is such that it can be operated on LNG using 9-cylinder in-line Wrtsil 20DF and 6-cylinder in-line 34DF dual-fuel engines. All in all, the customer is provided with a sound development incorporating a design that is 30% lighter while having the same deck space. This results in lower building costs, and thus lower day charter rates, as well as lower operational costs. The vessel has an improved on site availability, due to its all weather, all year round, high weather tolerance, and the advantage of Wrtsils worldwide 24/7 Service with 20,000 service engineers. The improved load distribution (soil conditions/punch through), the robust and reliable jacking system, and a crane concept that provides the best possible accessibility across the entire main deck for heavy load lifts, all serve to reduce the project risks. 40

Lock bolt with cylinder Jack house support structure Jacking cylinders (second oor level)

Second oor

Jacking frame with locking pins Jacking cylinders (tween deck level) Main deck

Vessel hull

Tween deck

Jack-up leg Fig. 9 The Aker Solutions jacking system

Fig. 10 Wrtsil integrated Automation

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