https://www.scipedia.com/public/Pastor_et_al_2025a Mon, 01 Jun 2026 13:28:13 +0200 https://www.scipedia.com/public/Pastor_et_al_2025a Digital twins (DTs) offer significant promise for condition-based maintenance of floating offshore wind turbines (FOWTs); however, existing solutions typically compromise either on physical rigor or real-time computational performance. This paper presents a real-time DT framework that resolves this trade-off by embedding a hydro-elastic reduced-order model (ROM) that accurately captures structural dynamics and fluid–structure interaction. Integrated in a cloud-ready Internet of Things architecture, the ROM reconstructs full-field displacements, von Mises stresses, and fatigue metrics with near real-time responsiveness. Validation on the 5 MW OC4-DeepCWind semi-submersible platform shows that the ROM reproduces finite-element (FEM) displacements and stresses with relative errors below 1%. A three-hour load case is solved in 0.69 min for displacements and 3.81 min for stresses on a consumer-grade NVIDIA RTX 4070 Ti GPU—over two orders of magnitude faster than the full FEM model—while one million fatigue stress histories (1000 hotspots×1000 operating scenarios) are processed in 37 min. This efficiency enables continuous structural monitoring, rapid *what-if* assessments and timely decision-making for targeted inspections and adaptive control. By effectively combining physics-based reduced-order modeling with high-throughput computation, the proposed framework overcomes key barriers to DT deployment: computational overhead, physical fidelity and scalability. Although demonstrated on a steel platform, the approach is readily extensible to composite structures and multi-turbine arrays, providing a robust foundation for cost-effective and reliable deep-water wind-energy operations.

]]> Julio García-Espinosa https://www.scipedia.com/public/Servan_Camas_et_al_2025a Mon, 01 Jun 2026 13:16:14 +0200 https://www.scipedia.com/public/Servan_Camas_et_al_2025a Structural elasticity of floating wind turbines in integrated load analysis (ILA) is typically addressed by modelling the substructure with simplified beam models. The main reason can be found in the computational cost of the structural solver when solving the fully coupled hydroelastic problems. In this work, a reduce order method based on modal matrix reduction is applied to reduce the computational cost of the structural solver. The main idea is to largely reduce the number of degrees of freedom of the structural system by retaining only those modes with significant energy. The seakeeping hydrodynamics is solved using the finite element framework SeaFEM. The structural particulars are introduced into this framework to fully integrate the fluid-structure interaction. The hydroelastic model is also coupled with the wind turbine solver OpenFAST, resulting in a complete aero-hydro-servo-elastic tool for the ILA analysis of floating turbines. A methodology is proposed to identify critical conditions and hotspots based on the structural energy. An application case of the present strategy is presented for a detailed structural design of the well-known OC4-DeepCwind. The consistency of the modal approximation and methodology is verified against the FE structural solution. The capabilities of the proposed ILA framework are demonstrated in a fully coupled and detailed structural analysis, instead of at component level, with a significant reduction of its computational time.

]]> Julio García-Espinosa https://www.scipedia.com/public/Garcia-Espinosa_et_al_2026a Mon, 01 Jun 2026 13:15:03 +0200 https://www.scipedia.com/public/Garcia-Espinosa_et_al_2026a The numerical simulation of a ship’s hydroelastic structural response is typically carried out using simplified modelling approaches. The main reason can be found in the computational cost of the structural solver when solving the fully coupled hydro-elastic problems. In this work, a two-way coupled fluid-structure interaction model capable of efficiently and accurately computing the hydro-elastic response of a ship using a detailed full-length structural representation is proposed. To reduce the computational cost of the structural solver, a reduced-order method based on modal matrix reduction is applied. The main idea is to largely reduce the number of degrees of freedom of the structural system by retaining only those modes with significant energy. Furthermore, to improve the accuracy of the model, this work proposes a combined methodology in which a residual finite element (FE) solution is computed alongside the reduced model, while still achieving a reduction in the overall computational effort. The seakeeping hydrodynamics is solved using the computational framework SeaFEM. And the structural particulars are introduced into this framework to fully integrate the fluid-structure interaction. An application case of the proposed model strategy is presented for a detailed structural design of a ship. The consistency of the modal approximation and methodology is verified against the full FE structural solution. It shows the capabilities of the proposed framework to perform a fully coupled and detailed structural analysis, instead of at component level, with a significant reduction in computational time.

]]> Julio García-Espinosa https://www.scipedia.com/public/Pacheco_et_al_2020a Sat, 13 Jul 2024 10:28:03 +0200 https://www.scipedia.com/public/Pacheco_et_al_2020a This paper describes the research performed within the scope of H2020 project FIBRESHIP in the development and validation of a thermo-mechanical model to assess the fire performance of composite structures. A one-dimensional thermal model with pyrolisis is used to obtain the temperature prole across the thickness and later introduced in the thermomechanical model with a quadrilateral shell element approach. The composite constitutive model employed is the socalled Serial/Parallel Rule of Mixtures (SPROM) which has been modied to introduce the effect of the thermal deformation. A set of experimental tests are then used to validate the correctness of the numerical method proposed. The experimental data used to validate the thermal model is the classic Henderson experimental test. The thermomechanical coupling is validated against an original vertical furnace test of a FRP ships bulkhead following on the 2010 FTP Code standards. These validations demonstrate the correctness and accuracy of the proposed decoupled thermomechanical formulation.

]]> Julio García-Espinosa https://www.scipedia.com/public/Pacheco_et_al_2024a Tue, 04 Jun 2024 18:40:02 +0200 https://www.scipedia.com/public/Pacheco_et_al_2024a This paper delves into the application of digital twin monitoring techniques for enhancing offshore floating wind turbine performance, with a detailed case study that uses open-source digital twin software. We explore the practical implementation of digital twins and their efficacy in optimizing operations and predictive maintenance, focusing on controlling the real-time structural state of composite wind turbine structures and forecasting the remaining useful life by tracking the fatigue state in the structure. Our findings emphasize digital twins’ potential as a valuable tool for renewable energy, driving efficiency and sustainability in offshore floating wind installations. These

aspects, along with the aforementioned simulations, whether in real-time or forecasted, reduce costly and unnecessary inspections and scheduled maintenance.