A real-time, event-triggered storm surge forecasting system for the state of North Carolina

A new real-time, event-triggered storm surge prediction system has been developed for the State of North Carolina to assist emergency managers, policy-makers and other government officials with evacuation planning, decision-making and resource deployment during tropical storm landfall and flood inundation events. The North Carolina Forecast System (NCFS) was designed and built to provide a rapid response assessment of hurricane threat, accomplished by driving a high-resolution, two-dimensional, depth-integrated version of the ADCIRC (Advanced Circulation) coastal ocean model with winds from a synthetic asymmetric gradient wind vortex. These parametric winds, calculated at exact finite-element mesh node locations and directly coupled to the ocean model at every time step, are generated from National Hurricane Center (NHC) forecast advisories the moment they are inserted into the real-time weather data stream, maximizing the number of hours of forecast utility. Tidal harmonic constituents are prescribed at the open water boundaries and applied as tidal potentials in the interior of the ocean model domain. A directional surface roughness parameterization that modulates the wind speed at a given location based on the types of land cover encountered upwind, a forest canopy sheltering effect, and a spatially varying distribution of Manning’s–n friction coefficient used for computing the bottom/channel bed friction are also included in the storm surge model. Comparisons of the simulated wind speeds and phases against their real meteorological counterparts, of model elevations against actual sea surface elevations measured by NOAA tide gauges along the NC coast, and of simulated depth-averaged current velocities against Acoustic Doppler Current Profiler (ADCP) data, indicate that this new system produces remarkably realistic predictions of winds and storm surge.     

1980—2015年风蚀影响下中国北方土壤有机质与养分流失时空特征

中国北方干旱/半干旱区是全球主要的沙尘源区之一,风蚀造成的沙尘排放可导致大量的土壤有机质（SOM）与养分流失,并通过传输与沉降过程对其进行空间再分配,对空气质量、气候变化、植被生长及生物地球化学过程等具有重要影响。本文利用WRF/Chem（Weather Research Forecasting with Chemistry）v3.7.1大气化学传输模型,对1980—2015年间中国北方沙尘排放及其引起的SOM、全氮（TN）与全磷（TP）的时空变化过程进行了精细化模拟,探究了中国北方风蚀引起的SOM、TN与TP养分流失的时空变化特征。结果表明：① 1980—2015年来平均每年约有66.59 Tg的沙尘颗粒排放至大气;② 沙尘排放具有较大的时空差异,沙尘排放源区主要集中在新疆东部、内蒙古西部的巴丹吉林沙漠和腾格里沙漠等地区;③ 每年因沙尘排放引起的SOM、TN和TP流失量分别约为0.07 Tg、0.004 Tg和0.005 Tg;④ 1980—2015年间中国北方沙尘排放及其引起的SOM、TN与TP的流失量具有较强的年际波动,未呈现显著的趋势性变化特征。本研究对于认知风蚀在碳循环与养分循环过程中的作用,以及对深入了解中国北方的土地退化机理具有重要意义。     

Uncertainty analysis of soil-pile interactions of monopile offshore wind turbine support structures

The objective of this work is to study the uncertainties involved in the modelling of the soil-pile interaction concerning their influence on the prediction of the dynamic structural response of monopile offshore wind turbine support structures. Two main issues are identified and addressed: the adequacy of the method used to deal with the soil-pile interactions and the adequacy of the soil properties reflecting the behaviour of the soil. The present study develops an approach that defines the penetrated pile length depending on the soil profile. Also, a parameter is defined to avoid the excessive usage of steel for the penetrated pile structure. The uncertainties are included in the probabilistic free vibration analysis and the contribution of each random variable to the scatter of the response is estimated by performing a sensitivity analysis. The results indicate that the uncertainty involved in the modelling of the soil profile has a significant effect on the coefficient of variance of the natural frequency, which is a serious issue to be considered in the fatigue life assessment of offshore wind turbine support structures.     

Dynamic modeling and vibration suppression for an offshore wind turbine with a tuned mass damper in floating platform

The worldwide demand for renewable energy is increasing rapidly. Wind energy appears as a good solution to copy with the energy shortage situation. In recent years, offshore wind energy has become an attractive option due to the increasing development of the multitudinous offshore wind turbines. Because of the unstable vibration for the barge-type offshore wind turbine in various maritime conditions, an ameliorative method incorporating a tuned mass damper (TMD) in offshore wind turbine platform is proposed to demonstrate the improvement of the structural dynamic performance in this investigation. The Lagrange's equations are applied to establish a limited degree-of-freedom (DOF) mathematical model for the barge-type offshore wind turbine. The objective function is defined as the suppression rate of the standard deviation for the tower top deflection due to the fact that the tower top deflection is essential to the tower bottom fatigue loads, then frequency tuning method and genetic algorithm (GA) are employed respectively to obtain the globally optimum TMD design parameters using this objective function. Numerical simulations based on FAST have been carried out in typical load cases in order to evaluate the effect of the passive control system. The need to prevent the platform mass increasing obviously has become apparent due to the installation of a heavy TMD in the barge-type platform. In this case, partial ballast is substituted for the equal mass of the tuned mass damper, and then the vibration mitigation is simulated in five typical load cases. The results show that the passive control can improve the dynamic responses of the barge-type wind turbine by placing a TMD in the floating platform. Through replacing partial ballast with a uniform mass of the tuned mass damper, a significant reduction of the dynamic response is also observed in simulation results for the barge-type floating structure.     

Effect of wave nonlinearity on fatigue damage and extreme responses of a semi-submersible floating wind turbine

Floating wind turbine has been the highlight in offshore wind industry lately. There has been great effort on developing highly sophisticated numerical model to better understand its hydrodynamic behaviour. A engineering-practical method to study the nonlinear wave effects on floating wind turbine has been recently developed. Based on the method established, the focus of this paper is to quantify the wave nonlinearity effect due to nonlinear wave kinematics by comparing the structural responses of floating wind turbine when exposed to irregular linear Airy wave and fully nonlinear wave. Critical responses and fatigue damage are studied in operational conditions and short-term extreme values are predicted in extreme conditions respectively. In the operational condition, wind effects are dominating the mean value and standard deviation of most responses except floater heave motion. The fatigue damage at the tower base is dominated by wind effects. The fatigue damage for the mooring line is more influenced by wind effects for conditions with small wave and wave effects for conditions with large wave. The wave nonlinearity effect becomes significant for surge and mooring line tension for large waves while floater heave, pitch motion, tower base bending moment and pontoon axial force are less sensitive to the nonlinear wave effect. In the extreme condition, linear wave theory underestimates wave elevation, floater surge motion and mooring line tension compared with fully nonlinear wave theory while quite close results are predicted for other responses.     

Effects of installation on the cyclic axial behaviour of suction buckets in sandy soils

Suction buckets differ with their easy and cost-efficient installation technique from other foundation types for offshore wind turbines. For successful completion of their installation process, suction is essential, but the imposed seepage leads to the changes in states of the soil in and around the bucket. Especially, a loosening of soil inside the bucket affects the load carrying behaviour of bucket subjected to repetitive loading resulting from environmental conditions. In this study, the behaviour of buckets under cyclic axial compressive loads with considering a possible loosening and related changes in permeability of soil inside the bucket is investigated numerically. In the framework of finite element analysis, a fully coupled two-phase model and a hypoplastic constitutive model are used to describe the saturated sandy soil behaviour under repetitive loading. The porosity-permeability variation is taken into account by Kozeny–Carman relationship. Special attention is dedicated to load carrying behaviour of bucket top plate, inner and outer skirt as well as base and their changes resulting from a loosening of soil inside the bucket with variable aspect ratio. For this purpose, cyclic axial compressive loads which cause an attenuation and progressive failure of soil-bucket system response are considered. The main findings on the changes in load carrying behaviour of bucket are presented and discussed.     

Ekman模型时间变化风应力系数的伴随参数估计

本文基于时间分布参数设置,利用伴随同化方法,反演了Ekman模型中随时间变化的风应力拖曳系数,并在孪生实验和实际实验中对该方法进行了验证。在孪生实验中,研究了参数反演结果对不同影响因素的响应,包括:风速分布、风应力系数分布、风应力系数初始猜测值、风应力系数独立变量个数、观测数据误差和观测的深度。孪生实验结果验证了伴随同化方法反演Ekman模型中时变风应力系数的有效性,具体包括如下五个方面结论:1)不同风速分布下均能成功反演出不同风应力拖曳系数分布; 2)反演结果对初始猜测值较为敏感,风应力系数初始猜测值越接近给定值,反演结果越好;3)风应力系数独立点个数的选取会显著影响反演结果,合理的选择有利于提高反演效率及减小观测数据误差;4)观测误差能够影响反演结果,观测数据误差在20%以下时能取得合理的反演结果; 5)反演结果对观测数据的表层和次表层流速更为敏感,这是由Ekman流的物理性质决定的。实际实验,利用百慕大锚系试验平台的风速和流速数据,去除周期性潮流和地转流成分后得到Ekman流成分,并作为观测输入到该同化模型,反演出了适用于该区域和该时段的随时间变化的风应力系数。通过比较模拟流速和观测流速,证明利用伴随同化方法能从实测数据中反演出合理的时变风应力系数,对于海洋模型风应力系数的确定是一项有益的尝试。     

Drainage conditions around monopiles in sand

Large diameter monopiles are typical foundation solutions for offshore wind turbines. In design of the monopile foundations in sand, it is necessary to understand the drainage conditions of the foundation soil under the design loading conditions as the soil performance (strength and stiffness) is highly dependent on the drainage conditions. This paper presents a numerical investigation into this issue, with a purpose to develop a simple design criterion for assessing the soil drainage conditions around a monopile in sand. It is found that for typical monopile foundations in sand, the drainage condition during a single load cycle is generally expected to be undrained. However, the current state-of-practice uses p-y springs derived for drained soil responses for monopile design. The impact of this discrepancy on monopile foundation design was evaluated and found to be insignificant due to the relatively low level of loading as compared to the capacity of the soil.     

2015年台风“彩虹”过境后下山冷急流引起的南海北部海域异常海面降温

This study deals with a unusual cooling event after Typhoon Mujigea passed over the northern South China Sea(SCS) in October 2015. We analyze the satellite sea surface temperature(SST) time series from October 3 to 18,2015 and find that the cooling process in the coastal ocean had two different stages. The first stage occurred immediately after typhoon passage on October 3, and reached a maximum SST drop of –2℃ on October 7 as the usual cold wake after typhoon. The second stage or the unusual extended cooling event occurred after 7d of the typhoon passage, and lasted for 5d from October 10 to 15. The maximum SST cooling was –4℃ and occurred after 12d of typhoon passage. The mechanism analysis results indicate that after landing and moving northwestward to the Yunnan-Guizhou Plateau(YGP), Typhoon Mujigea(2015) met the westerly wind front on October 5. The lowpressure and positive-vorticity disturbances to the front triggered meridional air flow and low-pressure trough,thus induced a katabatic cold jet downward from the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau(QTP) passing through the YGP to the northwestern SCS. The second cooling reached the maximum SST drop 4d later after the maximum air temperature drop of –9℃ on October 11. The simultaneous air temperature and SST observations at three coastal stations reveal that it is this katabatic cold jet intrusion to lead the unusual SST cooling event.     

三个台风对我国东部沿海风电的联合影响

基于CCMP(cross-calibrated multi-platform)再分析风场数据,研究了9907号, 9908号和9909号3个台风对中国沿海5个风电场的影响,分别从台风的形成以及路径,对沿海风电场风速的影响,台风期间的发电情况等详细地描述了台风对风电机组的影响。发现:台风对5个海上风电场的影响可以分为3个阶段,第一阶段是1999年8月1—4日,输出功率由南向北依次降低,此时主要受9907号台风的影响;第二阶段是8月6—9日,8月6日也呈现输出功率由南向北降低,主要是9909号台风由南海途径台湾海峡即将进入东海的影响;受9908号台风影响, 8月7日最大输出功率出现在S3风机。8月8日,受9908和9909号台风的叠加影响, S4风机的输出功率达到15天的最大值38.4 MW。第三个阶段是8月12—15日,受大气锋面的影响, S1—S5输出功率呈现波动。台风过境期间提高了各站点的运营能力和部分站点的额定容量,未对风电机组产生大的破坏。研究成果可为相关部门在台风期间海洋风力发电的决策提供参考。