Organisers: Prof. Lars Vabbersgaard Andersen, Aarhus University, Denmark & Dr. Zili Zhang, Tongji University, China
Emails: lva@eng.au.dk ; zili_zhang@tongji.edu.cn
Summary: To meet future requirements of energy production and reduce emission of greenhouse gasses, further development of renewable energy sources is in high demand. As an example, wind energy has evolved to a technology level where the cost of energy is now competitive with fossil fuels. However, this requires installation of extremely large and flexible structures, often in harsh offshore conditions, to exploit the full potential. Thus, new challenges arise concerning structural safety and design, including foundation concepts to be used in deeper waters. This special session will focus on development and application of computational models for renewable energy structures, e.g., wind turbines, with regard to static, cyclic and dynamic analyses. The models can be analytical, semi-analytical or numerical, and the work may be concerned with deterministic and/or stochastic analyses, design standards, feasibility studies, novel structural or foundation concepts, or case studies. Relevant topics include load estimation, structural dynamics, active, semiactive and passive damping, buckling and other instability issues, fatigue, development and application of aero-hydro-servo-elastic codes, structure–fluid interaction, scour, structure–soil–fluid interaction, constitutive modelling of soil and foundation materials as well as modelling of soil–structure interfaces.
