DESIGN AND STRENGTH CALCULATIONS OF THE TRIPOD SUPPORT STRUCTURE FOR OFFSHORE POWER PLANT

Abstract

The support structure being the object of the analysis presented in the article is Tripod. According to the adopted assumptions, it is a foundation gravitationally set in the water region of 60 m in depth, not fixed to the seabed, which can be used for installing a 7MW wind turbine. Due to the lack of substantial information on designing and strength calculations of such types of structures in the world literature, authors have made an attempt to solve this problem within the framework of the abovementioned project. In the performed calculations all basic loads acting on the structure were taken into account, including: the self mass of the structure, the masses of the ballast, the tower and the turbine, as well as hydrostatic forces, and aero- and hydrodynamic forces acting on the entire object in extreme operating conditions.