Floating Wind Turbine Mooring Dynamics

Fixed-bottom wind turbines only work in shallow water — floating platforms are what let offshore wind reach the deep water off coasts like California, Japan and the Mediterranean. This simulator models a semi-submersible floating turbine held on station by three catenary mooring lines, driven simultaneously by steady wind thrust and oscillating wave loads. Adjust wind speed, wave height, mooring pretension and blade pitch and watch the platform's surge offset and pitch tilt settle into a damped spring-mass response, while each mooring line's tension is computed from how far the platform has moved toward or away from its anchor. Push blade pitch toward feathered at high wind speed and see thrust, tilt and line loads drop together — the same trade-off floating-wind operators manage in the North Sea and off the Scottish and Norwegian coasts today.