Reliability of offshore wind turbine support structures: A state-of-the-art review
L. Wang, Athanasios Kolios, X. Liu, Demetrios Venetsanos, Rui Cai
Abstract
OWT (Offshore Wind Turbine) support structures are exposed to harsh ocean environment with significant uncertainties in soil properties and environmental loads. Reliability assessment of OWT support structures taking into account those uncertainties is crucial in the development of more cost-effective OWT support structures. This paper presents a state-of-the-art reliability assessment of OWT support structures, providing a comprehensive review on the structural reliability, reliability-based calibration of codes, fatigue reliability and the implementation of reliability assessment. The current and future developments of reliability assessment of OWT support structures, such as reliability-based design optimisation, multi-hazard reliability analysis and risk-based inspection, are also presented. This paper has been written for both 1) researchers new to this research area through providing a comprehensive review on the latest research and summarising underlying theory; and 2) experts in this research area through presenting a comprehensive list of relevant references where the details of analysis methods can be acquired.