The experiment was conducted to estimate the damping coefficient of pitch motion of a SPAR used as supporting structure for floating wind turbine. The pitch damping is important to reduce the pitch motion during operation of the turbine. The efficiency of the turbine depends on the pitch motion induced by wave moment working on the submerged part of the SPAR and the wind moment induced by the turbine operation. The efficiency decreases when the pitch motion increases.
To increase the damping of pitch motion, a damping plate was attached to the SPAR. The pitch decay was conducted and the damping coefficient was calculated by the same method for estimating the damping coefficient of roll motion from data of roll decay test. The results were used to analysis the effect of damping plate. In advance, the obtained damping coefficient can be used to calculate the pitch motion of the SPAR and estimating the efficiency of the wind turbine considering the wave and wind effect.
