Abstract
The oceans are a very important renewable energy source present in various ways: wind, waves, currents and others. Due to the high quantity of devices necessary to harness these energy sources, it is expected that it will be necessary to deploy offshore installations located on sea depths higher than 50 meters. This trend implies that in the near future, most of the offshore platforms will be moored and anchored to the seabed [1],[2]. At present no specific methodologies have been developed for the design of the anchoring systems [3], even more, when it has been necessary to anchor some demonstration or pre-commercial units, the technology from the Oil and Gas (O&G) industry has been applied.
In this paper, a R&D project which is underway will be presented. This project will generate specific knowledge in order to provide a methodology for the selection, analysis and design of anchoring systems of offshore moored platforms, individual and in farm configuration, for obtaining renewable energy. The key points of the project are advanced mechanical (fatigue and fracture) design and materials specification of the mooring line-anchor-soil system, geotechnical offshore analysis and the hydrodynamic calculations of the floating individual platforms and in a farm configuration. A relevant part of this project is the experimental program.
A description of the structure of the research activities in the project will be presented and at some extent the preliminary results after the initial phases of its development.