Experimental and numerical study on the hydrodynamic responses of a novel offshore floating photovoltaic system

Abstract

Over the past decade, floating photovoltaics (FPVs) have experienced rapid growth. To effectively reduce costs and actively promote the engineering application of floating photovoltaic systems, an innovative FPV design characterized by low cost, high stability, and excellent seakeeping performance is proposed in this paper. A series of floating pontoons serve as buoyant elements within the system, offering the necessary buoyancy, and solar panels are installed on a support structure which is made up of a truss frame. A series of regular and irregular wave model tests were conducted at the wave basin of Jiangsu University of Science and Technology with model scale determined as 1:20 to assess hydrodynamic characteristics of the FPV. Twenty-One regular wave tests were conducted to establish the Response Amplitude Operator (RAO) of the FPV. Furthermore, irregular wave tests were performed to predict hydrodynamic performance of the FPV under more realistic scenarios. It was found that the FPV system encounters the highest level of danger during beam sea conditions, as compared to when it faces heading sea and quartering sea conditions. Additionally, a comparative numerical model which has been validated by experimental data was applied to study hydrodynamics of the FPV and mooring tensions under extreme sea conditions, thus providing design considerations and profound insights for the future development of this FPV system.