A comprehensive assessment of the applicability of available and proposed offshore mooring and foundation technologies and design tools for array applications

Abstract

The function and type of mooring and/or foundation system are determined by a number of factors including: cost, site characteristics, expected environmental loading and environmental or legislative constraints. The design of the device and its mode of operation will also influence the decision making process. It is the role of DTOcean Work Package 4 to produce a decision making tool which has the capability to assess a range of technologies for the design and selection of mooring and foundation systems for marine renewable energy (MRE) device arrays. In this first deliverable report, criteria are introduced which can be used to appraise technologies and approaches relevant to MRE devices. Existing mooring and foundation technologies used in the offshore industry are summarised with examples given of MRE device deployments. A general overview of the design tools which are currently used for mooring and foundation design in the offshore and MRE industries is provided, along with a list of the capabilities of several commercially available software packages.