Combination resonances in forced vibration of spar-type floating substructure with nonlinear coupled system in heave and pitch motion

A spar-type floating substructure that is being widely used for offshore wind power generation is vulnerable to resonance in the heave direction because of its small water plane area. For this reason, the stable dynamic response of this floating structure should be ensured by accurately identifying the resonance characteristics. The purpose of this study is to analyze the characteristics of the combination resonance between the excitation frequency of a regular wave and natural frequencies of the floating substructure. First, the nonlinear equations of motion with two degrees of freedom are derived by assuming that the floating substructure is a rigid body, where the heaving motion and pitching motions are coupled. Moreover, to identify the characteristics of the combination resonance, the nonlinear term in the nonlinear equations is approximated up to the second order using the Taylor series expansion. Furthermore, the validity of the approximate model is confirmed through a comparison with the results of a numerical analysis which is made by applying the commercial software ANSYS AQWA to the full model. The result indicates that the combination resonance occurs at the frequencies of ω±ωn5ω±ωn5 and 2ωn52ωn5 between the excitation frequency (ω) of a regular wave and the natural frequency of the pitching motion (ωn5) of the floating substructure.