Mr Oscar Festa

Research interests

• Mooring systems for Floating Offshore Wind Turbines (FOWTs)
• Load reduction devices (LRDs) for FOWT mooring systems
• Optimisation of compliant mooring systems
• Machine learning-based design optimisation
• Dynamic modelling of FOWTs

Current research

As renewable energy structures move into deeper water, the now established fixed foundation concepts must be replaced by mooring and anchoring systems. Mooring and anchoring systems are designed to resist peak design loads, which can lead to stiff, heavy and expensive designs.  Development of more efficient mooring systems is particularly important for the transition to renewable energy, since the low energy yield per structure (compared to oil and gas systems) requires many structures to be moored to the seabed.

Extensible, non-linear load reduction devices (LRDs) can add compliance to the mooring system, reducing the peak loading transmitted to the anchor enabling smaller, cheaper anchors and a reduced mooring footprint. However, this must be considered alongside increased platform movements.

The outcome of Oscar's research project will be the development of a compliant mooring system design methodology to optimize the material cost of mooring and anchoring systems for floating wind turbines, while ensuring tolerable platform displacements. The design method will rely on machine learning techniques to assist in optimization of the complex system.