Integrated Load and Strength Analysis for Offshore Wind Turbines with Jacket Structures

Peter Dalhoff, Kimon Argyriadis, Marcus Klose

Germanischer Lloyd Industrial Services GmbH, Business Segment Wind Energy
Hamburg, Germany

ABSTRACT
The paper presents results of an integrated analysis of wind turbine
behaviour and structural dynamics of a complex support structure
(jacket) under combined wind and wave loads in the time domain. This
work will be compared to more simplified state-of-the-art approaches
using separated analysis of wind turbine and structure. First results will
be presented in the paper and possible optimization discussed.
A second focus is put on the detailed fatigue analysis of the tubular
nodes of the jacket using the loading derived by integrated analysis.
Here again, the authors expect a high potential of optimization by using
sophisticated analysis tools such as 3D-FE calculations.

Germanischer Lloyd (GL) is taking part in this joint European project

in order to investigate the applicability of existing standards and
guidelines and the optimization potential in view of a later serial
production. As it is intended to extend the wind farm to several hundred
units serial production effects have to be considered.

KEY WORDS: Wind Energy; Offshore; Wind Turbine; Support

Structure; Jacket; Load Simulation.
INTRODUCTION
Within the last few years, a number of offshore wind farms have been
put to operation in European countries like Denmark, the UK and the
Netherlands. They all have in common that they are situated in shallow
water, i.e. less than 25m and relatively close to the shore. Therefore it
was economical to use simple concrete gravity foundations or steel
monopiles as substructures.
Projects that are currently being developed aim for deeper water sites
due to certain boundary, e.g. environmental conditions. Other
foundation solutions will be necessary in that case.
During 2006, a prototype of the REpower 5M (5 MW) wind turbine has
been erected near the Beatrice Oilfield in the Scottish North Sea,
founded on a jacket foundation (Fig. 1). This one and a second turbine
form a demonstrator project to investigate the feasibility for a latter
offshore wind farm of 200 turbines. The site is situated in the Moray
Firth, 25 km away from the shore in a water depth of approximately 45
m, i.e. beyond existing experience within offshore wind energy.
Linked to this wind farm is the EU funded DOWNVInD (Distant
Offshore Windfarms with No Visual Impact in Deepwater) research
project.

Fig.1: Installation of a 5 MW Turbine on Jacket Substructure (Source:

REpower Systems AG)

GENERAL
Offshore wind turbines (OWTs) could be regarded as minimal and
unmanned offshore structures deployed in large numbers. This is true
when looking on the principals of loading and structural analysis, but
the complexity and specialized issues of OWT design do not allow a
direct application of offshore oil and gas industry design principles. In
contrast the assumption that OWTs are like their onshore pendants
having only wet feet does not hold, too. Hydrodynamic, material,
soil, operation and maintenance issues require a special engineering
approach.
A typical difference in approach of the two industries is, that wind
turbines are standardized products while offshore structures are usually
custom made. OWTs and wind farms are in between. Within a wind
farm the turbine structure will experience the same wind and almost the
same wave conditions, while water depth and soil conditions may vary
significantly. Even between the different wind farms in a greater area
(e.g. North Sea) the wind conditions will not vary significantly or be a
function of simple parameters as distance to shore, height etc. It can be
shown, that the influence of site specific parameters, like water depth,
wave height and soil conditions, on the support structure (foundation
and tower) are significant, resulting in site specific designs. Conversely
it can be shown that the influence of the site parameters (except wind)
on the machinery design (above yaw bearing) is limited, allowing type
standardization.

LOAD ANALYSIS
General
When performing a load analysis it has to be recognized, that a wind
turbine, and especially an OWT is a highly non linear and elastic
system. As a result load analysis for wind turbines is usually performed
in the time domain considering the systems elastic response (aeroelastic
coupling). The main reasons for non-linearity are:

Aerodynamics (quadratic nature of wind load combined with

stall effects at high angles of attack).

Control system influence (blade pitching and rotor speed

variation as a function of required power and load).

Wave load (drag load and kinematics in shallow waters)

Non-linear elastic response due to load-soil interaction.

The non-linear influences are further influenced by the high dynamic
response of the OWT structure. Characteristically it can be stated that
the support structure of most offshore wind turbines shows a
fundamental natural period in the region between 2s and 4s which is
well in the high energy region of both wave and wind spectra.
Additionally the response is influenced by the aerodynamic damping
which is again influenced by the aerodynamics and the control system
of the turbine.
A common method to obtain an analysis of a system like an OWT is to
simulate turbulent wind fields and wave trains in time domain. The
response of the structure is calculated for each time step using the blade
element theory for the wind loads and the Morison equation for wave
loads. It is essential that the global elasticity of the support structure
and the rotor are modeled properly and efficient.
To produce fatigue load time histories stochastic wind fields for
different wind speed classes (characterized by mean wind speed and
standard deviation) and accompanying wave trains (characterized by
significant wave height and peak period) are generated. Using these as
input the response of the structure is calculated and the sectional forces
are analyzed with the rainflow method and extrapolated with the
Weibull distribution for the design life time. This procedure is very
time consuming since several seeds of 10 minutes long time histories
have to be generated per bin to achieve statistically acceptable results.
For space frame structures like jackets the wind and wave directionality

may play considerable role, since the load direction in combination

with the orientation of the members may result in very different results.
For monopile structures it is often assumed that wind and waves are
always collinear and from the same direction. For jacket structures this
may not be conservative. A problem is that, to be exact, not only mean
wind or wave direction is needed but the misalignment of the two load
sources has to be considered. Unfortunately the information needed in
form of a five-dimensional scatter diagram is usually missing and
simplifying assumptions have to be made. Further the amount of cases
to be analyzed is so high that the data are difficult to handle.
Due to the time consuming approach of time domain simulations it is
often desired to develop simple methods. An issue to be solved when
looking for simplified methods is the correct phasing of wind and wave
load as well as the mutual interaction of the loads due to the systems
elasticity. In integrated time domain analysis the calculation would
result in a correct phasing of wind speed and wave elevation and
resulting load (provided the simulation length and number is big
enough). Further the mutual interaction is inherently correctly taken
into account.
As stated separated analysis is lucrative due to its effectiveness but
some problems have to be solved using general assumptions. Firstly the
phasing of wind and wave load has to be assumed stochastic and noncorrelated. Second, empirical adjustments of the aerodynamic damping
when analyzing wave load for elastic structures have to be made.
Further possible amplification of wind loads due to wave excitation or
interaction of the turbine control with wave induced vibrations have to
be considered. This has been performed with some success for
monopile structures by Kuehn, Schwarz and van der Temple. The direct
addition of the spectra will result in too conservative load assumptions.
A very simple method is the quadratic addition of the equivalent load
spectra, this is used here. Kuehn is proposing a weighted quadratic
superposition, based on the zero and second order spectral moments.
The difference in the present structure is that a very big turbine is used
on a transparent and stiff structure at very deep water.
Modeling of the integrated structure
For the present analysis a model of the support structure was built using
Bladed software. The model considers an OWT with following main
characteristics:
Rotor diameter
Rated power
Number of blades
Hub height
Water depth
Jacket height (about)
Total mass (about)

126
5
3
84
45
62
1100

m
MW
m LAT
m LAT
m
t

The support structure being a jacket structure was modeled using a

simple beam element model as shown in Fig. 2.
The support structure model consists of about 200 tubular elements
with about 750 degrees of freedom. The rotor model is built up from
about 25 elements per blade and considers twist and bending-twist
interaction. Further drive train torsional flexibility as well as generator,
pitch and torque control system dynamics are considered.
The problem in the model building is the optimization between
discretization, time and space needed to perform the analysis. To
reduce calculation time modal analysis of the rotor and the support
structure are used.
It has to be stated, that with modal analysis it is impossible to consider
the load-soil stiffness non-linearity,therefore linearization has to be
performed. In the present case the tangent stiffness at low load was
used (linear part of the soil springs), since the highest number of cycles

is occurring at low load conditions.

Tower top

the sites wind rose. Even these simplifications result in a minimum

amount of about 170 cases with a total of 85 simulation hours.
As a first approach simplified analysis over the diagonals and the flat
side of the structure alone was performed. The loads are compared at
three different locations, tower base (intersection point transition piece
to cylindrical tower), jacket column bottom at the adjustment point of
their pile sleeve and K-node at -30m LAT. Figures 4 and 5 show
sample time series of the load. For confidentiality reasons, the absolute
values on the y-axis have been deleted in the following.
34

Wind & wave

direction

32

Tower base

Tower Myz [MNm]

Sample node

30
28
26
24
22

Member 6 (Column)
Node 15

20

Member 57 (Brace)
18

Node 29

Node 1

16
14
12

Node 43

100

200

300

400

500

600

Time [s]

When performing an integrated load analysis the global elastic behavior

of the structure is of interest. Consequently the number of modes taken
into account can be reduced. As a rule modes with frequencies up to
4Hz to 5Hz are used. In the present case the 12 first rotor and 12 first
support structure modes were considered. Figure 3 shows examples of
the main support structure modes. It has to be stated, that the lowest
natural period of the structure is at about 2.8s.

Fig 4. Resulting bending moment at the tower base

Node 29

-1000

Tower Fx [kN]

Fig. 2: Support structure model for load analysis

-2000

Node 15
-3000

-4000

Node 43
-5000

-6000

Node 1
-7000
0

100

200

300

400

500

600

Time [s]

Fig 5. Normal force at the four column bottom nodes.

Fig. 3: Suport structure modes 1, 3 and 6

Comparison of loads from wave and wind

Simulation

When performing load analysis the influence of different load sources

is of fundamental interest. Its knowledge allows for simplifications and
considerable reduction of load cases to be considered. In the present
case 3 sets of load calculations were performed. One with wind and
waves, one with wind only and still water and one with the support
structure only, without rotor. In the latter case the tower top mass was
adjusted to include the whole nacelle and the structural damping was
increased to 6% of critical to take account of the aerodynamic damping.

Several analysis runs were performed, based on the external conditions

derived for the site in a scatter 3D-diagram. As a simplification a single
combination of mean wind speed, standard deviation, wave height and
peak period was considered per bin (wind speed bins of 2m/s). The
wind and the waves were assumed to be always co-linear. The different
probability of the bins over the direction was taken into account using

Figure 6 shows sample time series at the jacket column bottom and
figure 7 the resulting load spectra at the same node.

-3000

only limited local impact. This is quite surprising especially in view of

the chords where it could have been expected that the diagonal impact
would have been worse.
This phenomenon requires further investigation with a detailed
interpretation of the time-dependent relation of the load components.
5

-4000
wind and wave
-4500

-5000
wave only
-5500

wind only

-6000

Normal force cycle range [MN]

Tower Fx [kN]

-3500

dir. 0 [Tower Fx,

Location=Mbr 6 End
1.]
dir -45 [Tower Fx,
Location=Mbr 6 End
1.]
dir 0 [Tower Fx,
Location=Mbr 57 End
1.]
dir -45 [Tower Fx,
Location=Mbr 57 End
1.]

-6500

-7000
0

100

200

300

400

500

600

Time [s]

Fig. 6: Sample normal force time series at the jacket column bottom
due to wind, waves and wind and waves loading

Cumulative cycles [.]

Fig. 8: Normal force load spectra for direction of 0 and -45 at the Knode, column member 6 and diagonal member 57.
4.5

Cycle range normal force, column 1

[MN]

90

wind and wave

[kNm]

wave only

dir. 0 [Tower Mz,

Location=Mbr 6 End
1.]
dir 315 [Tower Mz,
Location=Mbr 6 End
1.]
dir. 0 [Tower My,
Location=Mbr 6 End
1.]

wind only

dir 315 [Tower My,

Location=Mbr 6 End
1.]
0.0
1.0e+03

1.0e+04 1.0e+05 1.0e+06 1.0e+07 1.0e+08 8.0e+08

Cumulative cycles [.]

Fig. 7: Normal force load range spectra at the jacket column bottom.
From the results it can clearly be seen that the wind load is the
dominating load source. This is surprising considering the high water
depth but easy understandable. Due to the low hydrodynamic load on
the support structure and the huge size of the wind turbine the wind
loads are clearly dominating. It has to be kept in mind that the
horizontal displacement of the jacket is less then a quarter compared to
the displacement of a monopile for an equivalent turbine at similar
water depths. Since fatigue wave loads are inertia dominated it can be
assumed that corresponding wave load is direct proportional to the
displacement.
Of further interest, is the influence of the directionality on the load of
the different members. Figures 8 and 9 show the load spectra for a wind
and wave direction of 0 (over the diagonals) to that over the flat side (45) for the K-node members at -30m water depth. It can be seen, that
the columns take most of the aerodynamic force and directionality has

Cumulative cycles [.]

Fig. 9: Bending Moment My and Mz load spectra for direction of 0

and -45 at the K-node, column member 6.

FATIGUE ANALYSIS OF TUBULAR NODES

General
For OWT support structures, the fatigue performance of welded
connections is a design driving criterion for many structural details.
One reason for this is the fact that the load level of the fatigue loads as
well as the number of load cycles to be considered is considerable
higher compared to offshore oil and gas platforms.
The number of load cycles generated from the rotor of a wind turbine
within the design life time of 20 years usually reaches more than 1x 109
load cycles.

Beside this, geometric nonlinearities lead to stress concentrations that

need to be considered within the fatigue assessment. Figure 10 shows
the transition piece that is situated between tower and jacket of the
demonstrator turbines as an example of irregular structures where
local stress concentrations have to be taken into account.

The geometric parameters are as follows:

t=
T=
d=
D=
g=
=

10 mm
50 mm
580 mm
870 mm
462 mm
46

Fig. 11: Geometric Parameters

With this input data, stress concentration factors for axial stresses, inplane-bending and out-of-plane-bending have been derived using the
Efthymiou equations.
A number of different approaches to calculate the resulting damage was
planned to be tested and compared:

Fig. 10: Transition Piece (Source: http://www.downvind.com/)

Tubular joint design is a well-known field of research of the offshore
industry. For fatigue verifications, it is common practice to evaluate the
calculated damage based on hot spot stresses in combination with
related S-N curves. The GL Offshore Wind Guideline follows the
concept of the IIW recommendations and proposes a FAT-100 curve
for a full penetration butt weld. The slope of the S-N curve is m=3 and
m=5 respectively with the knee at N = 5 x 106. A thickness correction
for t > 25 mm is considered with a size exponent of n = 0.2 in
accordance with the actual Eurocode for fatigue design.
For the design calculations of the demonstrator jacket structure, the
hot spot stresses have been estimated by the design engineer on the
basis of the Efthymiou equations as provided e.g. in ISO 19902. For a
selected node, an additional finite element calculation was performed to
show that these equations can be considered to be conservative.
As a result of the analysis, the minimum fatigue life of some nodes was
lower than the scheduled 20 years. Therefore the respective welds had
to be toe grinded at the saddle position in order to improve the fatigue
resistance. In view of future serial production, it should be investigated
in the following if such kind of extensive manual work could be
avoided by more sophisticated analysis.
Sample Calculation
In the following, one of the lower K-nodes at -30 m (LAT) has been
picked for a sample calculation. The fatigue loads have been applied as
described in the previous section.

separate simulation of wind and wave loads and

(conservative) addition of section forces
integrated simulation of wind and wave loads
linear damage accumulation according to Miners rule with
ascending degree of accuracy

Due to the results of the load analysis showing that the wind load
would govern the fatigue loads as described above, only the combined
loads (upper line in Fig.7) were used for the sample calculation.
Regarding the last point, the easiest approach uses damage equivalent
loads (DEL). This is a method commonly used in wind energy
engineering for fast and easy comparisons of fatigue load spectra. It
requires a constant slope of the design S-N curve in order to transfer the
load spectra to a one-step rectangular load spectrum for a defined
reference number of load cycles (see Fig. 12). Usually, m = 4 is chosen
for welded steel structures, intersecting the m=3 branch of the S-N
curve at N = 1 x 106.
More information is included in the combined load spectra (see Fig.
12). For the load spectra the bi-linear S-N curve with m=3 and 5 is
used.
In case that the mean level of the oscillation is required, e.g. in case of
cast components, Markov or rainflow matrices are required.
Both contain similar information, but the Markov matrix gives range
and mean values of oscillations together with the respective number of
cycles while the rainflow matrix uses upper and lower border of the
oscillations.
The most accurate analysis could be done by using the time series
directly. Here, all load components are combined simultaneously. This
procedure is considered to be most accurate with the least
conservatism, but requires high efforts on computation.

Load range [ kNm]

The eigenvalue analysis shows an increase in the main periods of

vibration by 1% - 2% (excluding the 1st eigenmode) and thus a slight
reduction of overall stiffness if local joint flexibility is taken into
account.
Simplified rectangular load
spectrum

Accumulated no. of stress cycles n

Fig 12: DEL and Combined Load Spectra

For the sample node (see Fig.2), the resulting damage was calculated
for the upper brace.
For the DEL as well as for every step of the combined load spectra, the
stress range was derived according to the following formula according
to ISO 19902:

= SCFAX

M
M
N
+ ( SCFIPB IBP ) 2 + ( SCFOPB OBP ) 2
A
W
W

where SCF are the stress concentration factors for axial forces (AX), inplane bending (IPB) and out-of-plane bending (OPB), N and M are the
respective section forces and moments and A and W are the crosssection area and the section modulus respectively.
As a result, the calculated damage at the brace results as D = 3.87 with
DEL and D = 3.82 with the combined load spectra, i.e. the lifetime
would be reduced to approximately 5 years. This includes a safety
factor of M = 1.25 for underwater structures according to the GL
guideline. Both results are in the same order, i.e. the DEL matches the
criterion of being damage equivalent quite well. As the S/N curve
does not consider effects of the mean value, the use of Markov matrices
would not show any change.
Second, it can be seen that the required lifetime of 20 years is not
reached. Therefore it would be necessary to proceed with a more
accurate calculation approach.
Especially, the procedure of adding stress ranges is highly conservative.
The design engineer of the demonstrator structures used a more
sophisticated approach similar to the one described below and achieved
acceptable results (cf. Seidel).
This will include the consideration of the wind direction distribution. In
the previous damage calculation, it had been assumed conservatively
that the loads would act in the same direction all the time.

LOCAL JOINT FLEXIBILITY

Consideration of joint flexibility tends to reduce member end bearing
moments and increases mid-span moments. However, it does not
significantly affect the primary axial forces in a framework. The
inclusion of joint flexibility may reduce the overall stiffness of a
framework structure.
To estimate the effect of local joint flexibility a finite element model of
the overall jacket structure has been evaluated regarding global
dynamic behavior (eigenfrequencies) and local reactions to horizontal
load onto one brace.

Due to the consideration of local effects the force distribution within

the framework slightly changes which leads to both lower moments in
the discontinuous and higher moments in the continuous members of
the X-bracings.
Overall the jacket structure shows a high stiffness that the changes due
to flexible modeling of joint connections do not affect the magnitude of
forces and moments. However, the stiffness of the connection of the
jacket to the pile sleeves has not been investigated and will be subject
to further research.

PILES UNDER CYCLIC TENSION LOADS

For pile foundations the capacity of the single piles against tension
loads is generally smaller compared to compression loads.
This effect is even more severe when it comes to cyclic loading.
Anyone who has ever tried to pull out a simple pole of his garden fence
knows about the reduction of tensile capacity after cyclic loading
(moving the pole backand-forth a few times helps a lot!).
For an offshore wind turbine (OWT) with more than 108 load cycles
this should be judged as a serious and maybe critical issue.
The following article gives an overview about some research work in
this field and describes the state-of-the-art of the design procedures for
OWT pile foundations.
Background
The effect of cyclic loading on civil engineering structures can be
described as a progressive accumulation of displacement and a
reduction of the bearing capacity. As an example, field studies of
Koreck (1986) performed on vertically loaded piles revealed a
reduction of the pull-out capacity by a factor of 5 for some cases.
These tests were performed with less than a few thousand load cycles
which is some orders less compared to the number of load cycles
experienced by wind turbine structures during their scheduled life time
of 20 years or more. On the other hand, it has been shown on an
experimental basis that the initial deflections should be expected to
have the largest part of the accumulated deflections.
Another factor that has an influence on the long-term behaviour is the
load level of the cyclic loads. The following graph from Wang (2000)
shows the development of the displacement of a sample pile under
repeated loading for different utilizations. For a pile that is loaded to
70% or 80% of his capacity against static loads, the cyclic failure
occurs quite soon after less than 500 load cycles. Tests performed
with 30% of the static capacity only had a slow accumulation of
deflections in that case.

suggested, although it is stated that there is a wide range of

assumptions that can be used regarding boundary conditions, solution
characteristics, etc., that lead to an unlimited number of variations for
either of the two approaches.
It shall be noted that the significance of cyclic loading is less important
for most oil&gas platforms compared to the situation of OWTs.
At the moment, several research institutes are working on methods for
an improved prediction of the long-term behaviour of wind turbine
structures under cyclic loading with a focus on the soil behaviour.
An important subject in this context is the improvement of laboratory
test methods for cyclic load behaviour. The results would be needed to
perform fatigue analyses in a similar way as for construction materials,
for further information see Wichtmann et al. This would be the
prerequisite for an optimised pile foundation design.

CONCLUSIONS AND OUTLOOK

Fig 13: Displacement accumulation with number of load cycles for

different loading levels (Source: Wang)

Design Approaches
For wind turbines that are built for onshore applications, 20 years of
experience have been gathered regarding the design procedures. In
Germany, more than 20,000 turbines have been set up so far. Many of
them, especially in the windy coastal areas of the northern parts are
founded on pile foundations. The basic requirements have been
implemented in the guideline of the DIBt. Based on the knowledge
described in the previous paragraph, it was decided that cyclic loading
of the piles shall not be allowed under cyclic loads derived from typical
turbine operation such as full load operation at nominal wind speed
(Design Load Case DLC1.1).
This approach has been followed as well for GLs Offshore Wind
Guideline which has been published in 2005.
Until now, this has not been used for OWTs with jacket structures so
far, but it may be expected that this requirement may become designrelevant when very light-weight strutures are to be used. Tension loads
in jacket piles could either be reduced by additional deadweight or by
increasing the overall width of the jacket.
Therefore it could be necessary to look for more sophisticated design
approaches regarding the soils capacity e.g. if an existing jacket design
should be used for a location with higher loads on the structure.
The procedure as described above is based on experience and
simplified engineering approaches for practical applications. It shall be
noted in this context that the DLC 1.1 does not represent the highest
fatigue load occuring during the turbines lifetime.
Another engineering estimation is given in DIN 1054. There, it is
mentioned that a significant reduction of the bearing capacity of the
pile should be expected if the cyclic loads would be in the order of
more than 20% of the static bearing capacity.
The API guideline for the design of offshore platforms of the oil & gas
industry gives an explicite procedure for the verification of piles against
cyclic fatigue loads. Here, the same procedure as for static loads is used
implementation of the soil behaviour as non-linear springs (t-z and Qz-curves). It is stated that cyclic loading may lead to accumulated
deformations or decrease in loading carrying resistance. For detailed
investigations, discrete element models and continuum models are

The paper presents a sample calculation of a 5 MW OWT with jacket

foundation in relatively deep water compared to existing offshore wind
farms. The size is comparable to future wind farms in the North Sea
that are currently in the design phase. For the OWT configuration
investigated in this article, it was shown that the wind loads are
governing the fatigue design while the wave impact is only of minor
importance.
In consequence, it would be possible to use design procedures similar
to onshore wind turbines on braced structures (e.g. lattice towers) at
least for preliminary design.
On the other hand, it has to be pointed out that the effect could be
completely different in case of smaller turbines (2-3 MW class) and for
different support structures like a tripod. This should be investigated in
future research work.
Within the next steps of the DOWNVInD research project, further
possibilities of integrated analyses will be examined, especially under
consideration of the wind and wave direction distribution. The software
used for the load simulations allows the combination of the resulting
forces and moments that are derived for all structural members.
Multiplication of these results with the SCF values and division by
cross section properties lead to time series of the member stresses.
Finally, rainflow counting and calculation of the accumulated damage
lead to the calculated lifetime.
It is expected that this approach will lead to a satisfying reduction of
the calculated damage. On the other hand, due to the complexity of the
structure the effort regarding simulation time and interpretation of
results will increase significantly. It should be judged afterwards if this
additional effort is justified by the gain of information.

Fig 14: Lifting of Substructure (Source: Newsline Scotland Press)

An important goal of GLs work package within the DOWNVInD
research project is the identification of optimization potential of the
structural design. As the extension of the latter wind farm aims for up
to 200 structures, this will be a key concern for the profitability of the
project. Production and installation procedures (Fig.14) should be timeoptimized in order to install all units within an acceptable time frame.
By using state-of-the-art design and calculation tools, efficient use of
material and manpower can be achieved.
In the near future, the investigations described in this paper will be
complemented by additional parametric FE calculations in order to
reduce the conservatism included in the parametric equations used so
far. An alternative investigation will be performed to see if the use of
cast nodes may be a promising option for serial production.
The results obtained from the DOWNVInD research project will be
implemented within the upcoming revision of guidelines for OWTs.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Parts of the investigations described in this paper were investigated
within the EU-funded research project DOWNVInD.
Many sources were consulted during the preparation of this paper.
Especially, the authors gratefully acknowledge the continuously good
cooperation with all our colleagues at GL.

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