Renewable Energy 85 (2016) 1214e1225

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Renewable Energy
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/renene

Structural topology optimization of the transition piece for an offshore

wind turbine with jacket foundation

lez b, Ji Hyun Lee c, Young Il Kim c, *, K.C. Park d,

A. Gonza
Yeon-Seung Lee a, Jose
Soonhung Han a
a
Division of Ocean Systems Engineering, Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology, 291 Daehak-ro, Yuseong-gu, Daejeon 305-701,
Republic of Korea
b
Escuela T

ecnica Superior de Ingeniería, Universidad de Sevilla, Camino de los Descubrimientos s/n, Sevilla 41092, Spain
c
Samwon Millennia Inc., #724, Migum Park Building, 150 Gumgok-dong, Bundang-gu, Seongnam-City, Gyeonggi-do 463-806, Republic of Korea
d
Department of Aerospace Engineering Sciences, University of Colorado at Boulder, CO 80309-429, USA

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: The transition piece of a fixed offshore wind turbine is a reinforced part of the support structure that is
Received 20 October 2014 connected to the wind turbine tower. These structural elements present unique features and are critical
Received in revised form components of offshore wind turbines; designed to resist strong bending moments, shear forces and
25 May 2015
axial loads coming from cyclic environmental loads, such as wind and wave loads, acting during their
Accepted 20 July 2015
complete design life of 20 years. Well designed and manufactured transition pieces with optimized ul-
Available online 7 August 2015
timate and fatigue capacities, contribute to the structural soundness and reliability of offshore wind
turbines. In this paper we investigate the benefits of integrating structural topology optimization in the
Keywords:
Offshore wind turbine
design process of these elements, specially compared to classical design processes that are strongly based
Jacket foundation in experience and trial-and-error heuristic procedures. We first develop a solution for a 5 MW reference
Transition piece wind turbine with a jacket support using the classical design process and then apply structural topology
Topology optimization optimization techniques to the same design problem. After verification of both solutions, it was found
that the optimized solution is lighter and presents hot spots with lower stresses that extend its fatigue
life significantly; demonstrating that an integrated design cycle that includes topology optimization can
be very effective, speeding up the total design cycle and increasing the reliability of the final product.
© 2015 Published by Elsevier Ltd.

1. Introduction
At the start of 2013, almost 75% of the installed offshore wind
turbines (OWTs) in Europe use monopile foundation and only 13%
use jacket substructure [1]. Undoubtedly, this is due to the preva-
lence of shallow water locations and the maturity of this proven
design, which has been almost the default choice in water depths
up to 25 m with a firm seabed. But as turbine size and water depths
increase, monopile support structures become less attractive due to
rapidly growing hydrodynamic loads around large pile diameters,
increasing structural flexibility at deeper water depths and
complicated manufacturing with time-consuming installation
processes.
* Corresponding author.

lez),
E-mail addresses: yslee132@kaist.ac.kr (Y.-S. Lee), japerez@us.es (J.A. Gonza
jhlee@cae.co.kr (J.H. Lee), yikim@cae.co.kr (Y.I. Kim), kcpark@colorado.edu
(K.C. Park), shhan@kaist.ac.kr (S. Han).
Many works have investigated different solutions for the sup-
port of OWTs in general locations [2e7]. For turbines over 5 MW
and medium water depths of 30e60 m, jacket support structures
are a coherent evolution of monopile that, in the last years, have
evolved from prototypes to fully commercial deployments. Basi-
cally, jacket support structures have been originated from the oil
and gas offshore industry. In general, the legs of the jacket are set
on the seabed and driven piles are used to secure the structure.
Jacket substructures can take a number of forms with various
footing options, but those deployed so far for OWTs have been four-
sided, A-shaped, truss-like lattice structures resting on piles. The
same structural solution is adopted in this study.
Transfer of loads from the upper tower to the foundation is a
major challenge in OWT technology. The transition piece performs
the function of maintaining an accurate position of the tower
against variable wind, wave and current loads; hence it is a critical
component required to have high strength and reliability during
the complete service life of the OWT.

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.renene.2015.07.052
0960-1481/© 2015 Published by Elsevier Ltd.
 Y.-S. Lee et al. / Renewable Energy 85 (2016) 1214e1225
According to the type of foundation such as a monopile, jacket,
tripile, tripod, etc., different types of transition pieces are devel-
oped. Even for a determined type of foundation, the shape of the
transition piece changes according to the load characteristics
resulting from the wind turbine type, water depth and the
configuration of the tower and foundation. Therefore, the transition
piece has to be individually designed based on the integrated OWT
system, including the particular site conditions, to satisfy the
design requirements. In addition, since the transition pieces are
structural components where stresses are highly concentrated,
they need specific validity assessments of their robustness and
reliability. This is the reason why their designs are continuously
evolving and improving.
For jacket foundations in particular, OWEC solution [8] leads the
market in this respect, with different and well established solu-
tions. In Fig. 1, it is shown the evolution in their designs for the
tower to jacket connection, where the form of the braces of the
transition piece has evolved from inverted circular truncated cones
to simple tubular members. These changes are normally forced by
specific and individual project requirements like, for example, the
site and loading conditions, the structural dimensions, the turbine
weight and the material costs.
Designs of the transition piece vary according to specific and
individual project requirements including the site and loading
conditions, connecting structural dimensions, turbine weight,
material costs, etc, there are some general types of the transition
piece design for selection and consideration:
Simulating the dynamic response of an OWT mounted on a
jacket foundation is a complex fluid-structure interaction problem
where the waves and the large-scale wind blades cause bending
moments on the support structure owing to the complicated
aerodynamic loads and the nonlinear hydrodynamic forces acting
on the structure [9,10]. Dynamic simulations of this complexity
contain high levels of uncertainty [11e13] and are normally ob-
tained from time-domain numerical coupled aero-servo-hydro-
elastic codes which have been validated for the design of OWTs,
both in terms of the accuracy of the dynamic simulation and the
predictability of a wide range of design cases for different support
structures [14e19]. But, although simulation accuracy has been
demonstrated, loads and site-specific conditions need to be
considered very carefully in order to obtain reliable results [20e22].
This means that the support structure should be verified and vali-
dated for its specific location.
In this study, we perform an innovative design of the transition
piece for a jacket foundation situated in our location of interest, the
Yellow Sea of the southwest coast of the Republic of Korea, for
where feasibility studies with monopile transition pieces already
Fig. 1. Experience-based evolution in the design of a tower to jacket connection [8]. Initial solution of OWEC Quattropod® for the Beatrice Offshore Wind Project in Scotland 2007
(left) and the new design for Thortonbank wind farm in Belgium 2012 (right). Forced by different conditions, the braces of the transition piece have evolved from an inverted
circular truncated cone to a simpler tubular member.
1215
exist [23,24]. We use the commercial software GH-Bladed [25] to
calculate the dynamic loads acting on the transition piece.
Related to the design of the structure and in the field of offshore
engineering, topology optimization can be incorporated in a very
early phase of the product development process to propose
completely new designs [26e28]. Simply starting from an available
design space and fixing all the existing loads and boundary con-
ditions, a new design concept is automatically generated allowing
the engineer to explore new solutions. Different objectives and
constraints may be considered for the formulation of the optimi-
zation task; like minimum weight, maximum stiffness or longer
fatigue life. Structural optimization often generates designs that are
optimal from a mechanical point of view and helps the engineer to
improve the final product. This way, through the use of topology
optimization techniques, the development process becomes faster
and more efficient, resulting in structures that are lighter, stronger,
and more durable; which finally constitutes an important
competitive advantage for companies that incorporate these tools.
The particular focus of our study is in the use of topology opti-
mization to find an optimized shape for the transition piece of an
OWT jacket foundation by maximizing its structural stiffness; with
the purpose of providing enough resistance for extreme design
loads and increasing structural fatigue life. To validate the solution,
two types of analysis are performed: static analysis for ultimate
stresses, and dynamic analysis to determine fatigue life. Static
analysis uses extreme cases for wind and wave loads, perfectly
defined in the international standards for OWTs [29,30]. The fatigue
analysis is performed according to the Eurocode and GL recom-
mendations [31,32] using GH-Bladed to obtain the dynamic
response of the structure.
This work attempts to explore the applicability of topology
optimization techniques in the field of OWT structural design;
demonstrating how these techniques can help to develop better
solutions and procedures while reducing, at the same time, the
costs of design, deployment and manufacture.
The paper is organized as follows. Section 2 introduces the
characteristics of the 5 MW reference turbine model adopted in this
study. In Section 3, the design loads of the reference turbine are
analyzed for a jacket support structure, considering as site-specific
conditions the southwest coast of the Republic of Korea. Section 4
contains the detailed design of the support structure with a clas-
sical transition piece, obtained following an heuristic design
approach based on the design loads predicted in Section 3. The
mathematical and numerical principles of structural topology
optimization are covered in Section 5. In Section 6 structural to-
pology optimization techniques are introduced in the integrated
design chain and applied to the design of an optimum transition
1216 Y.-S. Lee et al. / Renewable Energy 85 (2016) 1214e1225

piece. Section 7 is dedicated to evaluate and verify the structural
performance of the new design. Finally, Section 8 closes with the
conclusions.
2. Reference OWT model
In this Section we describe a reference OWT model with jacket
foundation considered in the analysis. This model is introduced in
GH-Bladed to simulate the complete dynamic response of the
structure and obtain the stress resultants acting in the bottom
section of the tower that will be used later to design the transition
piece.
external conditions; environmental conditions such as wind, waves
and currents, as well as turbine state conditions. The loads induced
by external conditions are divided into three categories: initial and
gravitational loads, aerodynamic loads, and hydrodynamic loads.
Specific statistical data of the environmental conditions is required
to determine the final design loads that should be considered in the
design of a site-specific OWT system [20].
This section summarizes the results of the dynamic simulation,
based on a coupled aero-servo-hydro-elastic model, obtained for
the reference OWT mounted on a jacket foundation.
3.1. Site-specific environmental conditions

2.1. NREL 5 MW baseline OWT
National Renewable Energy Laboratory's (NREL) offshore 5 MW
baseline wind turbine is adopted as a reference in this study [3].
This OWT, initially developed by NREL for research purposes, is
now commonly used as a reference in many studies. The turbine is
developed based on Senvion 5 MW prototype wind turbine [33]
and is considered representative of a typical utility-scale and sea-
based multi-megawatt turbine. The basic characteristics of the
NREL 5-MW offshore wind turbine are summarized in Table 1.
In the present study, we consider that the OWT is supported by a
jacket foundation that incorporates a transition piece; a jacket
substructure designed to transmit appropriately the forces and
moments from the base of the tower to the seabed.
2.2. Jacket substructure
Design flexibility is an important advantage of jacket sub-
structures compared to other bottom-fixed solutions for equivalent
water depths; it is adaptable for a wide range of water depths, from
shoreline to deeper waters, and also to different turbines, from
small to large capacities (3e8 MW). No seabed preparation is
required and variations in the seabed level can be addressed by
adjusting the pile stick-up lengths. This solution also enjoys
competitive manufacturing costs owing to the simple structure and
the solid experience gained from the oil and gas industries.
The jacket support structure is a welded tubular space frame
with four vertical tubular chord legs with a bracing system between
the legs. It serves as a support for the OWT, that is connected
through a specially designed transition piece. This piece is a rein-
forced section that will be connected to the tower through a bolted
flanged connection.
We start our design considering a jacket support with the
classical transition piece, connecting directly the four legs of the
jacket structure to the base of the tower by using tubular braces of
conical section, see Fig. 2.
The installation area of the OWT is assumed to be in the Yellow
Sea. More specifically, the reference area is located at 35
300 15.8600
latitude and 126
040 08.9900 longitude on the southwest coast of
Korea; this site is considered to have excellent economic viability.
Kim et al. [34] evaluated the feasibility of offshore wind farms
development in the South Korean peninsula and selected appro-
priate sites with depths below 20 m and over 10 km from the coast
in the Yellow Sea. Therefore, the environmental conditions
considered, e.g., wind, currents, and tide, summarized in Table 2,
are those prevalent at this particular site. This area has been
selected for installing around 2.5 GW of offshore wind power by
2030.
The sea state is described in the frequency domain by the
PiersoneMoskowitz wave spectrum, using the significant wave
height and peak spectral period defined in Table 2.
3.2. Ultimate design loads
Ultimate design loads are determined analyzing the dynamic
response of the NREL 5-MW reference wind turbine with a jacket
support structure under the load cases defined by IEC61400-3 [29].
Environmental loads are also calculated according to DNV stan-
dards, particularized to the Yellow sea conditions, simulating the
dynamic wind loads with the von Karman model. All load cases

3. Dynamic analysis of the OWT

Structural design of an OWT is based on the verification of the

structural integrity of each component under different types of

Table 1
Characteristics of the NREL 5 MW baseline wind turbine.

Rating 5 MW
Rotor orientation, configuration Upwind, 3 blades
Rotor, hub diameter 126 m, 3 m
Hub height 90 m
Cut-in, rated, cut-out wind speed 3 m/s, 11.4 m/s, 25 m/s
Cut-in, rated rotor speed 6.9 rpm, 12.1 rpm
Cut-out wind speed 25 m/s
Fig. 2. Model of the NREL 5 MW wind turbine with jacket foundation used in the
Rated tip speed 80 m/s
analysis.
 Y.-S. Lee et al. / Renewable Energy 85 (2016) 1214e1225 1217

were analyzed using the software GH-Bladed. Table 3

The most severe load case is found to be DLC 6.2b, defined in Limit design load case for the support structure [29].

Table 3. The ultimate design loads acting in the connection of the Design load case (DLC) DLC 6.2b
tower with the transition piece, listed in Table 4, are predicted from Design situation Parked (standing still or idling)
this load case DLC 6.2b, which states that the turbine is parked Wind condition Extreme wind speed model (EWM),
V(Zhub) ¼ Ve50
standstill or in idling state and is subjected to extreme wind and Waves Reduced wave height (RWH),
wave conditions. In this case [30], the design situation is considered H ¼ Hr50
as abnormal (type A) and a constant partial safety factor gF ¼ 1.1 Wind and wave Misaligned (MIS),
must be used for the analysis of ultimate strength. directionality multi-directional (MUL)
Sea currents Extreme current model (ECM)
While the ultimate design load is based on the extreme static
Water level Extreme water level range (EWLR)
single load case DLC 6.2b, which is selected as extreme among the Other conditions Loss of electrical network
time domain simulated load cases, Fatigue Limit State (FLS) check Type of analysis Ultimate strength (U)
has to be based on the entire fatigue loads during the design life. In Partial safety factor Abnormal (A)
the present study, only fatigue design load case DLC 1.2 is utilized
for the FLS check by assuming that it could represent the entire
fatigue life of the wind turbine, considering that DLC 1.2 generally Table 4
covers around 80% of the total fatigue loads. DLC 1.2 states that the Ultimate design loads of the tower under DLC 6.2b.
turbine is operating for power production and is subjected to Loads Symbol Value
normal turbulence model and irregular sea state [29].
Rotor thrust force Fxy 2,170 kN
Vertical force Fz 6,573 kN
Tilting moment Mxy 124,705 kNm
4. Heuristic design of the transition piece Tower torsional moment Mz 7,613 kNm

For comparison purposes, the transition piece is first designed

following a conventional trial-and-error design methodology; i.e.,
The analysis of the structure is taken under the hypotheses of small
starting from a draft solution that is constantly improved until the
deformations and linear elastic behavior of the materials, with
design requirements are completely satisfied. Furthermore, for a
constitutive parameters defined in Table 6.
detailed design of the transition piece, we also need to include a
The extreme design conditions, corresponding to hypothesis
realistic model of the jacket foundation. After many modifications,
DLC 6.2b, are applied to the jacket structure and also to the tower
we find a solution that fulfills all the structural safety requirements
via a rigid multi-point constraint (MPC), a type of nondeforming
imposed by Det Norske Veritas (DNV) design guidelines [35e37].
beam element. The linear elastic analysis of the structure was
The result is presented in Fig. 3, where it can be observed that
performed using the FEA software NX-Nastran. FEM results are
stiffeners had to be included in the transition piece to control
shown in Fig. 3 in terms of horizontal X and Y global displacements.
stresses.
Stresses and deformations are checked and considered admissible.
In our study, the jacket structure with pile foundations is fixed
Verification of the model is revisited in Section 7.
to the seabed at a water depth of 20 m. The jacket foundation in-
cludes leg piles that are driven into the seabed. Leg piles anchor the
structure and transfer both vertical and horizontal actions to the
5. Topology optimization
soil. Hence the axial stiffness of the soil is provided by a combi-
nation of axial soil-pile adhesion or load transfer along the sides of
Topology optimization, since the pioneering work of Bendsøe
the pile and end bearing resistance at the pile tip. Linear elastic
and Kikuchi [26], who formulated it as an optimal material distri-
spring elements are introduced in the legs of the jacket structure to
bution problem, has won a broad acceptance in science and in-
model this behavior, the stiffness properties of these elements
dustry. Topology optimization helps to determine the optimum
should be carefully selected according to the data provided by the
possible form inside an available design space volume. After the
geotechnical site investigation [38]. The displacement boundary
design space is defined, a finite element model is built and all
conditions are then defined at a seabed depth of 20 m.
relevant boundary conditions and loading conditions are applied.
In order to take into account any possible local stress concen-
Topology optimization provides an optimum material distribution
tration, the finite element model precisely describes the geometry,
for a large number of objectives and constraints, so the designers
including details e.g. the transition piece, the stiffening rings, the
may start to work with a good design proposal.
flanges and the door stiffeners. The finite element mesh is
Topology optimization of continuum structures essentially be-
composed of 233,083 nodes and 221,927 finite elements; including
longs to a set of integer programming problems with a large
360 rigid link elements, 48,138 solid elements and a combination of
number of discrete binary design variables. High efficient gradient-
4,041 3-node and 172,388 4-node shell elements with 6 DOFs per
based optimization algorithms cannot be directly applied to solve
node. Geometrical dimensions of the structure are given in Table 5.
such large-scale optimization problems because of the well-known
combinatorial problem. To this end, the homogenization and Solid
Table 2 Isotropic Material with Penalization (SIMP) techniques have been
Wind and wave conditions for reference site [23,29]. introduced, relaxing the discontinuous discrete optimization
problem and allowing the design variables to take intermediate
Condition Symbol Value
densities between 0 and 1. In doing so, the original optimization
Reference wind speed Vref 42.5 m/s
problem changes to a regularized optimization problem with
Annual average wind speed Vave 8.5 m/s
Turbulence intensity Iref 0.16 range-bounded continuous design variables.
Average water depth d 20 m Topology optimization, in simple words, is a method that solves
Significant wave height Hs 2.765 m the problem of distributing a given amount of material in a design
Peak spectral period Tp 9.74 s domain, subject to load and support conditions, maximizing or
Design sea current speed UD 1.646 m/s
minimizing an objective function. Common objective functions try
1218 Y.-S. Lee et al. / Renewable Energy 85 (2016) 1214e1225

Fig. 3. Initial design of the OWT substructure. Finite element model of the jacket foundation with a classical design for the transition piece. Displacement contours in the horizontal
plane.

Table 5 structure and fixing the total amount of material to be used.

Principal dimensions of the jacket structure and the transition piece. Therefore, the optimization problem with a volume constraint can
Geometry parameter Value be stated as [26,27]:
Jacket structure height 33.4 m
Platform elevation above SWL 14.8 m
Tower diameter 5m
Transition piece height 8.4 m
minimize cðxÞ ¼ f T u
Transition piece diameter 5m subject to : KðxÞu ¼ f
XN
(1)
V+  Vi xi ¼ 0
i¼1
Table 6 0 < xmin  xi  1
Basic material properties of steel S355. Nomenclature from Ref. [32].

Property Symbol Value where u and f are the global displacement and force vectors,
respectively; is the compliance, K is the global stiffness matrix, N is
E-modulus (modulus of elasticity) E 210 GPa
Poisson's ratio n 0.3 the total number of finite elements forming the design space and
Density r 7850 kg/m3 x ¼ {x1,x2,…,xN}T is the vector of design variables and each design
Yield strength ReH 355 MPa variable xi, states the amount of material of element i present in the
Ultimate tensile strength Rm 470 MPa
solution. Finally, Vi is the volume of finite element i and V+ the
prescribed final volume of the structure. During the solution pro-
cess, the volume of the structure decreases from the total volume of
to optimize weight, stiffness, fatigue life, buckling resistance and U to the final volume of the optimized structure V+.
natural frequencies. The design variable could be considered as binary, xi ¼ {0,1},
For most designs, the goal is mainly to maximize the structural adopting two possible states depending on the absence (0) or
stiffness, so usually, the objective function of topology optimization presence (1) of element i in the solution. In fact, this is the approach
is the value of a linear function c(u) for the equilibrium displace- used for example in the Bi-directional Evolutionary Structural
ment field u. This linear function is called compliance, and it is the Optimization (BESO) method [39]; but it has been reported in the
inverse of a global stiffness, so when compliance is minimized, the literature that this full in-or-out approach fails to converge in some
structure will attain the maximum stiffness. This means, placing practical cases [40].
the material only where it contributes to overall stiffness. On the contrary, material interpolation schemes consider the
Maximum structural stiffness is also normally related with higher, design variable as a continuous variable between complete void or
but not maximum, buckling resistance in statics and natural fre- fill, i.e. 0< x min  xi  1, where the value xmin (e.g. 1  104) is a
quencies in dynamics. practical lower bound of the elemental density introduced to avoid
singularity in the numerical implementation. In particular, material
5.1. Topology optimization for minimum compliance interpolation with penalization have been widely used in the Solid
Isotropic Material with Penalization (SIMP) method [27,28] to find
The objective of our topology optimization problem is to the optimal solution by a void-to-fill density interpolation.
determine the stiffest possible structure, or find the solution with In SIMP, a topology optimization model based on the power law
minimum compliance, for a given design space U 3 ℝd (d ¼ 2,3); by is adopted, i.e., each element i is assigned a density fraction xi that
providing the load distributions, the support conditions of the determines its Young's modulus as:
 Y.-S. Lee et al. / Renewable Energy 85 (2016) 1214e1225 1219

center located at the center of the corresponding i-element and

Ei ¼ E0 ðxi Þp (2) radius rmin. These filtered sensitivities are then used in the updating
process of the optimality criteria (5).
where E0 denotes the Young's modulus of the solid material and p is
the penalization power (typically, p  3 is used in SIMP). It is also
assumed that Poisson's ratio is independent of the design variable, 5.2. 2D example
making it possible to write the global stiffness matrix of the
structure as an assembly of element contributions in the form: As an example of this mathematical optimization process, we
consider first a simplified 2D plane-stress approximation of the
X
N problem. The vertical load Fz and the tilting moment Mxy produced
KðxÞ ¼ ðxi Þp K0i (3) by the OWT, can be reduced to a vertical equivalent force f that
i¼1 should be efficiently transmitted to the vertical column of the
jacket structure situated a distance a from our vertical force, see
where K0i is the elemental stiffness matrix of the completely solid Fig. 4. We wonder how should be the optimal shape of the transi-
element i. tion piece for transmitting this vertical load with maximum stiff-
Equations (1)e(3) define the minimization problem to be ness or minimum deformational energy. This problem has been
solved. Following the derivation in Refs. [39], the sensitivity of the extensively treated in the literature [28,39].
objective function c with respect to the change in the design vari- First step is to select the design domain U. Because its height is
able is found to be: not known a priori, we define a vertical dimension b and study
different cases. Three mesh sizes are considered, consisting of
vc
¼ pðxi Þp1 uTi K0i ui (4) 100  50 elements (a ¼ 2b), 50  50 elements (a ¼ b) and 50  100
vxi
elements (b ¼ 2a). The volume constraint is set to V+ ¼ 0.5V0 where
V0 ¼ a  b is the initial volume and the usual value p ¼ 3 is used for
with ui representing the nodal displacements of element i; sensi-
the penalization exponent. The problem is solved using element
tivity is an important ingredient of any optimization algorithm.
sensitivity filter (7). The filter radius rmin equals 1.5 times the
The above optimization problem can be solved using several
element size.
different approaches such as the Optimality Criteria (OC) methods
The aim of optimization problem (1) is to find the optimal ma-
[41,42], the Method of Moving Asymptotes (MMA) [43] and some
terial distribution, in terms of minimum compliance, with a
others. The OC method is typically used in situations where the
constraint on the total amount of material V(x). Fig. 5 shows a
number of global constraints is much less than the number of
comparison of compliance evolution histories for the three meshes
design variables. A standard OC iterative scheme for the design
studied. The solution demonstrates that, for an efficient trans-
variables can be formulated as proposed by Bendsøe [44]:
mission of the vertical load to a distant support, an inclination b/
8     a  1 should be used and that slopes above this lower limit do not
>
>
> max xmin ; xki  m if xki Bhi  min 1; xki þ m
<     produce significant increment in the overall structural stiffness.
xkþ1 ¼ min 1; xki þ m if min 1; xki þ m  xki Bhi From this simple example, it is deduced that a straight tubular
i >
>  h brace with an inclination between 45
and 60
would be the best
>
: xki Bki otherwise solution. Any skilled engineer would be able to arrive to the same
(5) conclusion without using topology optimization but, as we will see
in the next Section, optimal solutions for more complicated 3D
where xkþ1
i
is the value of the design variable of element i at iter- problems are difficult to imagine based only in experience or
ation k, m 2 [0,1] is the positive move limit introduced to ensure intuition.
that a small change of relative density occurs in the element be-
tween successive iterations, h is a damping factor to stabilize the
6. FEA integrated optimum design
convergence (normally set to 0.5), and Bi is found using the opti-
mality condition (4):
Nowadays, structural optimization techniques are being inte-
 p1 grated very rapidly in the industrial design process [6,45,46].
Bki ¼ l1 p xki uTi K0i ui (6) Principal advantages of using topology optimization in industry are

where the Lagrangian multiplier l can be determined using a

bisection method or a Newton method.
Finally, to ensure that the optimal design is mesh-independent
and that the solution is checkerboard free, a filtering technique
should be used, which works by modifying the element sensitiv-
ities as follows:
0 11
  X
N X
N
vc vc
¼ @xi Hij A Hij xj (7)
vxi filtered j¼1 j¼1
vxj

where Hij is the mesh-independent weight factor defined as:

  
Hij ¼ rmin  rij ; i2N rij  rmin (8)
Fig. 4. Definition of the design domain in a 2D topology optimization problem. The
and rij is the distance between the centers of elements i and j. The tower forces and moments are reduced to an equivalent force that needs to be
original sensitivities are thus averaged over a circular area with its transmitted to the fixed vertical support.
1220 Y.-S. Lee et al. / Renewable Energy 85 (2016) 1214e1225
a significant reduction in the development time, the possibility of
obtaining a completely new design concept from an optimized
solution that conforms to the requirements and finally, the econ-
omy; due to material savings, less manufacturing costs or an in-
crease in the product's life.
Because a mathematical optimum solution is not always feasible
or viable, the design process involves a series of steps that are
difficult to automatize. Furthermore, in the particular case of
designing OWT systems, the structure has to be checked and
modified accordingly to the requirements of every new site.
In order to ease the work of the designer, from the first draft to
the detail changes, the tools and methods have to be integrated into
the CAD/CAE chain. In Fig. 6, this integration of topology and shape
optimization into the design process is shown for our particular
problem.
The process consists of several steps, ranging from design space
definition over CAD-modeling, generation of the FEM mesh using a
preprocessor, to the transformation by the optimization prepro-
cessor, in order to obtain the data necessary to initiate topology
optimization. After topology optimization, the design model is no
longer purely based on geometrical data, because optimal solution
is given in terms of solid elements with their material density xi.
Therefore, this tessellated solution has to be smoothed using a
special smoothing algorithm to detect the external surfaces of the
object.
Note that topology optimization only provides design sug-
gestions for fabrication, but the validity of the optimum design
needs to be assessed by the engineer. The optimization process
itself ends with the transformation of the shape-optimized data
into a geometry-based CAD model, which itself has to be
meshed and reanalyzed using FEA in order to validate the final
design.
The user has to repeat the integrated production chain repre-
sented in Fig. 6 from rough drafts to the final detail improvements.
Therefore, a wide variety of links or interfaces between several
engineering software tools are needed for generating and evalu-
ating numerical models, such as finite element pre and post pro-
cessors, FEM solvers for appropriate simulation and optimization
packages.
As components of the computer-aided design scheme described
above, we have employed the optimization solver Tosca [47,48]
from FE-Design and the FEA pre and post processors of NX-Nas-
tran. Also the smooth module of Tosca has been used to produce the
smoothed surfaces that are transferred to the 3D CAD system.
Fig. 5. Convergence of the 2D plane-stress problem for three different a/b ratios. It is observed that configurations with a/b  1 produce solutions with similar stiffness.
6.1. Application to a 3D transition piece
Initial FEM design used for topology optimization includes the
complete jacket structure, a part of the tower and a boxed design
space U introduced to accommodate the transition piece, as shown
in Fig. 7. The jacket structure is modeled using linear elastic shell
elements with 6 degrees of freedom (DOF) per node. Fixed DOFs
boundary conditions are used at the bottom of the jacket on the
seabed, which are sufficiently far from the design space to not affect
the analysis results. The design space is carefully fine-meshed using
3D elastic brick elements to obtain accurate results and mesh-
independent solutions. The rest of the model, tower and jacket, is
defined as not belonging to the design space and do not participate
in the optimization process but contribute to the overall flexibility.
The design loads for the optimization are obtained from the load
analysis of the 5-MW reference OWT under extreme conditions, as
listed in Table 4, and applied on a section of the tower by using rigid
linear elements. The material is steel with the properties given in
Table 6.
Because the external loads are not symmetric, two vertical
orthogonal planes of symmetry need to be imposed as additional
design conditions to the optimization problem. The optimization
objective function is the minimization of compliance (1), maxi-
mizing the stiffness, while reducing structural volume V+ up to a
10% of the design-space volume.
The optimization process converges after 16 iterations. Fig. 8
shows the evolution in topology of the transition piece, together
with the values of volume and relative stiffness for each iteration.
Note how the elements of low sensitivity number (4) are being
gradually eliminated, decreasing the volume of the piece until the
conditions are satisfied and the solution of maximum stiffness is
found.
The mathematical optimum design of the transition piece as
obtained by the topology optimization solver is shown in Fig. 9(a).
This solution has to be smoothed and transformed to a shell
structure, the final result is presented in Fig. 9(b) and (c). The final
geometry obtained following the complete topology optimization
process and the classical solution are seen to be rather different,
despite having both the same four-leg basic structure. The final
optimal model presents a long and narrow horizontal oval shape in
the width direction and no stiffeners are required, as compared to
the classical model obtained by the conventional trial and error
design method. The final weight of the optimized model is a 7.4%
lighter than the classical not optimized model and thanks to the
 Y.-S. Lee et al. / Renewable Energy 85 (2016) 1214e1225 1221

Fig. 6. Flow chart of the steps involved in an integrated computer-aided design scheme with topology optimization.

elimination of stiffeners, the welding work is also reduced. How-

ever, it is important to mention that the resulting form could be
difficult to standardize, diminishing its potential benefits due to
higher manufacturing costs.

7. Solution verification

Last part of the proposed integrated design process involves the

verification of the optimized design. Our optimum solution is next
verified by FE analysis and its performance compared to the initial
heuristic design under the same static and dynamic load
conditions.
At this point, it is important to mention that both designs satisfy
the structural requirements. But an important difference between
them is in the design process used to arrive to that particular so-
lution. In the first case, a classical heuristic trial-and-error meth-
odology and in the second, a completely automatized design
process based on structural optimization.

7.1. Ultimate Limit State design

Fig. 7. Finite element model of the jacket foundation with loads transmitted by the
OWT and the design space defined for topological optimization of the transition piece. Ultimate Limit State analysis is performed for the transition
1222 Y.-S. Lee et al. / Renewable Energy 85 (2016) 1214e1225
Fig. 8. Evolution in topology of the transition piece. Variation of the volume and structural stiffness during the iterative optimization process.
m
piece under the ultimate static load applied by the OWT defined in
Table 4. The equivalent stress distributions of the heuristic design
and the optimum design under the limit design loads are compared
in Fig. 10. The partial material safety factor used for steel is gM ¼ 1.1,
increasing to gM ¼ 1.25 for welded connections, providing a mini-
mum design resistance of 376 MPa for steel S355. Highest stresses
occur in the connections of the braces to the tower and the plat-
form, regions with considerable geometrical variation, but they
correspond to minor local hot spots. However, the maximum stress
does not exceed the design limit in any case.
It is also observed in Fig. 10 that the maximum equivalent stress
is reduced in the optimized design a 14% compared to the heuristic
design. Moreover, in the connection of the braces to the tower,
stresses are reduced by 24%. These reductions in stresses might not
seem significant but, as we will describe in the next section, they
can represent increases in fatigue life by a factor of 2e4 times the
value of the heuristic design. Note that according to the theoretical
equation for fatigue life (9) if stress ranges are multiplied by a factor
alpha, i.e., Ds2 ¼ aDs1, then the fatigue life is affected by a factor
am ¼ N1/N2. In conclusion, the optimized transition piece for the 5-
MW OWT is suitable and robust enough to meet the strength
design requirements.
7.2. Fatigue Limit State design
Because OWT with jacket foundations are slender and flexible
structures, they can be very susceptible to wind, current and wave
loads during their service life. This makes it difficult to avoid
alternating stresses in the transition piece when the jacket is sub-
jected to hydrodynamic loads and the mid-section receives dy-
namic forces and moments due to a normal operation of the wind
turbine. These factors cause the fatigue analysis to be of major
concern [49] requiring a strength verification of the support
structure members and connections to the tower under repetitive
cycles of life loads.
The SeN curves represent the quantitative relationship between
an applied cycle of constant stress range Ds and the design life time
of the specimen expressed as a number of cycles N to failure. SeN
curves in certain ranges follow the theoretical equation:
N DsA
¼ (9)
ND Ds
where ðND ; sA Þ are the coordinates of a reference value and m is the
slope of the fatigue strength curve. If possible, statistically assured
SeN curves for the raw material should be used as a basis. When such
curves are not available, synthetic SeN curves in accordance with
standards may be adopted for a comprehensive fatigue analysis.
In our fatigue study, SeN curves are constructed following
Eurocode and GL recommendations [30e32]. The number of cycles
to failure, for the case of unmachined cast steel, is assessed using
the synthetic SeN fatigue curve of Fig. 11, calculated with the pa-
rameters summarized in Table 7. On the other hand, Fig. 12 shows
the SeN curve used to evaluate the fatigue life in welded joints. In
this case, the connection has to be first classified with a detail
category. Each detail category is designated by a number which
represents, in MPa, the reference value for the fatigue strength of
the detail at 2 million cycles. Each category has associated a
different SeN curve.
To perform the fatigue evaluation, we first discretize the stress
spectrum into k different stress ranges Dsi (i ¼ 1…k), each stress
range contributing with ni stress cycles. Under the Palmgrene-
Miner linear damage accumulation hypothesis, the accumulated
damage sum, D, from the fatigue strength calculation should not
exceed the value Dmax, i.e.:
X
k
ni
D¼  Dmax (10)
i¼1
Ni
where Ni is the tolerable number of stress cycles obtained from the
relevant SeN curve for a constant stress range of value gMDsi and
gM is the partial safety factor for fatigue verification. Hence the
accumulated damage D from a fatigue strength calculation is
dependent on the material, type of loading and structural
geometry.
The allowable fatigue damage which is commonly used for the
fatigue design of structures is Dmax ¼ 1. In case of welded machinery
components that are subjected to variable amplitude loading, the
damage sum may not exceed Dmax ¼ 0.5.
 Y.-S. Lee et al. / Renewable Energy 85 (2016) 1214e1225 1223

Fig. 9. Transition in three steps from a tessellated optimal solution of the jacketetower
transition piece to a CAD shell definition of the structure. Fig. 10. Contours of maximum equivalent static stress level for the initial and the
optimized design. Maximum stress in the optimized design is reduced by 15% and
corresponds to a local hot spot in the connection of the brace to the platform.

Similarly, the fatigue capacity can also be considered as

adequate when the calculated design life for the largest acting effect of mean stress was determined by the Goodman relation.
stress amplitude corresponds to at least 2 million cycles, provided Final result of this process were the different stress ranges Dsi and
that the fatigue loading is subjected to wind and waves according to their associated number of stress cycles ni.
DNV offshore standard 2012 [36].

7.2.1. Fatigue loads

The basic environmental conditions considered to obtain the
fatigue loads are the same that were used for the OWT analysis,
previously described in Section 3.1. The load history in this analysis
is also calculated by the OWT simulation software GH-Bladed.
To proceed with the fatigue analysis, time series of loads coming
from the aero-hydro-elastic simulation were recorded for periods
of 10 min to be later applied as external forces and moments to the
finite element model of the transition piece as shown in Fig. 7.
These external loads produced new time series of stresses in the
transition piece, which are finally analyzed by applying the rainflow
cycle counting method for each node of the mesh. Critical plane
approach (CPA) was used as the stress combination method and the Fig. 11. Synthetic SeN curve used for fatigue calculations for unmachined steel.
1224 Y.-S. Lee et al. / Renewable Energy 85 (2016) 1214e1225
Table 7
Fatigue influence factors used to construct the synthetic SeN curve for unmachined
steel according to [32] as represented in Fig. 11.
Property Symbol Value
Stress ratio R 0 MPa
Surface roughness factor Rz 60 mm
Partial safety factor for fatigue verification gM 1.15
Quality level for component j 1
Constant for material and test method j0 0
Notch factor bk 1 constitutes a competitive advantage for companies that use these
Fig. 12. Synthetic SeN curves used in the fatigue calculations for welded connections
as defined by GL standards.
7.2.2. Fatigue design requirements
In order to meet the strict requirements of the fatigue design, all
welds have been designed as full penetration butt welds of high
quality. Using the results coming from the time simulation, the final
amount of damage was calculated by applying the Palmgrene-
Miner linear damage accumulation method (10). The damage
evaluation was done by considering a typical service life of 20 years.
All the fatigue calculations were performed within the embedded
fatigue module of Nastran.
Fatigue results of the transition piece revealed that, over a
complete service life of 20 years, the maximum accumulated
damage occurs at point A, shown in Fig. 13, with a total accumulated
damage D ¼ 0.411. This point is located in a lateral weld of the brace
to tower joint. According to GL standards, the damage sum D ob-
tained from the fatigue strength calculation should not exceed the
maximum value Dmax ¼ 1. Hence the optimized design is finally
accepted as secure.
8. Conclusion
It is a common understanding in the OWE industry that
monopiles are the preferred solution up to water depths of not
more than 20 m, mainly due to the larger diameters and masses
that would be needed for deeper waters and the corresponding
difficulties in the handling of these structures [50]. However, other
particular conditions of the zone, like construction experience,
availability of installation equipment and presence of problematic
soils, should be considered as well. These local factors can tip the
balance in favor of the jacket solution even for moderate water
depths. In our case and due to the specific conditions of the loca-
tion, 20 m has been selected as the minimum water depth to start
considering a jacket support structure.
The main objective of this work has been to include topology
optimization in the design process of the transition piece of a jacket
support structure for an OWT, proposing an integrated computer-
aided design scheme that can be used repeatedly for different
projects and locations, presenting the same or deeper water depths.
The use of optimization tools in the early stage of the product
development chain, offers new potential in the industrial design
process. In particular, the design process becomes faster and more
efficient employing topology and shape optimization tools. This
results in lighter, stronger, and more durable structures, which
solutions.
We have explored the benefits of integrating structural topology
optimization in the design process of a jacket substructure for an
OWT. Seeking for reliable and cost-effective solutions to support
large-scale wind turbines in mid-depth seas with harsh and rapidly
varying environmental conditions is a challenging problem that can
benefit from this techniques. Classical design processes in this field
have been strongly based in experience and trial-and-error heu-
ristic procedures.
To compare both design methodologies, we have analyzed the
transition piece of a jacket-type foundation used to support the
NREL offshore 5 MW baseline wind turbine. The specific site
environmental conditions were considered to be in the Yellow sea,
near the southwest coast of Korea, a place with excellent economic
viability that has been selected for installing around 2.5 GW of
offshore wind power by 2030.
Without forcing the capabilities of the optimization process, we
were able to find through topology optimization a solution 7.4%
lighter than the heuristic solution, reducing maximum stresses
almost a 15% and obtaining a design with less number of pieces and
welding work. Also the fatigue life of the transition piece was
improved between 2 and 4 times its initial value, thanks to the
reduction in stresses. The maximum damage of the transition piece
over the service life of 20 years was found to be D ¼ 0.411, a value
much smaller than the maximum permissible damage Dmax ¼ 1.0.
Thus, the optimized transition piece, developed almost automati-
cally, satisfies the design requirements with high levels of security.
These positive results encouraged us to apply design optimiza-
tion techniques to other parts of the OWT. In particular, our next
objective is the optimization of the jacket geometry, recalculating
inclination and separation of the chord legs together with number
and position of the brace connections for maximum stiffness of the
support structure.
In conclusion, an integrated design cycle that includes topology
optimization, as proposed in this study for the design of a transition
Fig. 13. Contours of fatigue damage in the transition piece. The point of maximum
accumulated fatigue damage (point A) is located in a lateral weld of the brace to tower
joint.
 Y.-S. Lee et al. / Renewable Energy 85 (2016) 1214e1225 1225

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