Extended life DURAtion for steel welds and LINKs for offshore renewable energy generation.
The growth and stability of the wind industry will depend essentially on continued reductions in wind energy cost, even below that of fossil-fuel based energy sources. Consequently, the offshore wind industry is upscaling Wind Turbines from 8 MW up to more than 12 MW. This level of upscaling puts tough materials challenges because the mass of the turbine increases linearly with the cube of the rotor radius.
DURALINK project is thus motivated by the challenges in structural integrity assessment (including fatigue and hydrogen embrittlement) of the large structures and chains that will support offshore wind generation in the future.
Therefore, the main objective of DURALINK is to identify optimization design opportunities for offshore structures that lead to a reduction of the CAPEX and OPEX of offshore wind turbines. To attain this objective, DURALINK will identify optimization design opportunities for offshore structures through the evaluation of existing and improved steel-grade welds, fatigue analysis with cathodic protection at different potentials and developing predictive models of mechanical degradation. Furthermore, high strength steels composition will be optimized to lower Hydrogen Embrittlement susceptibility improving the security of chains for offshore wind turbines. Finally, DURALINK proposes a novel concept for protection of support structures. For this, it will develop novel thermal sprayed coatings for protection of substructure against marine corrosion able to be deposited by High Velocity Wire Arc Spray. The corrosion performance and enhanced behavior of the coated steels under fatigue, corrosion-fatigue and tribocorrosion conditions will be evaluated.
In the DURALINK project, the French Corrosion Institute contributes its expertise and testing capabilities to characterize the durability of thermally sprayed coatings in marine environments, to study hydrogen embrittlement of chain steels, and to qualify the fatigue performance of steels and welds under cathodic protection.
Participants
| FUNDACIO EURECAT (Spain) is the leading Technology Centre of Catalonia, providing the industrial and business sector with differential technology and advanced expertise. | Sidenor (Spain) is a market leader in the European special steel long product industry as well as an important supplier of cold finished products in the European market |
| Ecole Nationale Supérieure de Techniques Avancées BRETAGNE (France) is a multidisciplinary engineering school that offers world-class education courses. It is part of the Institut Polytechnique de Paris, a leading teaching and research institution in France and abroad. | WINDAR TECHNOLOGY AND INNOVATION (Spain) is the R&D subsidiary of WINDAR Renovables Group and it is focus on providing global solutions within the value chain of steel structures for the wind energy sector. |
| Grillo Zinc Metals (Germany) is technology leader in the field of zinc and sulphur. We are aware of our responsibility towards the environment and therefore always place a strong focus on sustainability. | OCAS (Belgium) is an advanced, market-oriented research centre providing steel and metal-based products, services and solutions to metal processing companies worldwide. |
| Institut de la Corrosion (France) is among the largest laboratories in the field of corrosion and corrosion protection of materials and structures. |
Results and papers
To come
Learn more
EURECAT : https://eurecat.org/portfolio-items/duralink/
This project is co-funded by the European Union in the frame of the RFCS (Research Fund for Coal and Steel) program
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The views and opinions expressed are those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or the RFCS. Neither the European Union nor the granting authority can be held responsible for them.