Offshore Reliability Approach for Floating Renewable Energy Devices

This paper describes the test facilities developed within the Peninsular Research institution for Marine Renewable Energy (PRIMaRE) group and discusses the approach of the group to mitigate risk for marine renewable energy installations. The main consideration is given to the reliability assessment of components within mooring configurations and towards power umbilical for typical renewable energy sites. Load and response data from sea trial will be used to highlight the importance of these research activities, and a Dynamic Marine Component Test rig (DMaC) is introduced that allows four degree of freedom fatigue or destructive tests. Furthermore it is discussed how this facilities could also aid in the reliability assessment of wider offshore applications.