Due to the huge energy production potential, offshore wind technologies have been developed rapidly in recent years. Offshore wind turbines often require physical model tests for performance evaluation and design verification. The real-time hybrid model test of offshore wind turbines is based on the sub-structure analysis principle of structural dynamics. The model tests and numerical calculations are coupled in real time to solve the scaling conflict that is difficult to achieve in traditional offshore wind turbine model tests. Since real-time interaction is necessary during the test process, it poses challenges to the solution of numerical sub-structures, loading of loader and data exchange between sub-structures. The present study aims to solve the key issue of data exchange between the numerical module and physical module. A UDP/IP communication mechanism was developed to exchange the information between numerical module in AeroDyn and physical test to replace the traditional TCP/IP system. With the UDP/IP the host can communicate directly with the controller which significantly reduces the time consumption during the process of data acquisition and transmission. The developed data exchange system was verified against a model test with a 1:90 scaled NREL 5 MW wind turbine supported by the monopile. This system provides a technical reference for the further development of real time hybrid model test of offshore wind turbine.
With the aggravation of the global greenhouse effect, offshore wind power, as a new field of clean energy, has great energy production potential and is widely supported and developed in many countries around the world (Lv et al.,2017; Esteban et al.,2011; Musial et al.,2016; Ren et al.,2021; Wang et al.,2022). In order to make better use of high-quality wind resources at the sea, the energy capacity and the hub height of offshore wind turbine are constantly increasing, and the whole wind turbine structure tends to be in large-scale. At the same time, due to the limitation of the available offshore space and the superiority of deep-sea wind power, offshore wind turbines have been developed from fixed offshore to floating offshore (Perveen et al.,2014). The development of the whole offshore wind power has continuously moved from offshore to deep-sea, which will lead to a more complex and extreme marine environment. In order to better ensure the structural integrity and operational safety of offshore wind turbines during their service life, it is necessary to strengthen the research on the structural performance and coupling mechanism of offshore wind turbines in the complex marine environment.
