RINA offers certification services for design, construction and installation of offshore wind farms, focusing on design verification of the support structure and type approval of the wind turbine.
Due to the large investments involved in offshore wind farms construction, third party verification and certification services are additional value to investors or insurance companies by reducing their risk and protecting their investment.
Moreover, the verification services are helpful to minimize the cost for wind turbine design changes or fabrication hitches.
All the activities, described in the following section, are to be carried out to verify compliance with applicable rules’ requirements such as “RINA Rules for the Classification of Fixed Offshore Platforms” for the structure and the international standard IEC 61400-3 for offshore wind turbine design.
The project of offshore wind farms requires mastering of multiple disciplines. There are several engineering challenges when locating wind turbines offshore mainly due to the action of the hydrodynamic loads.
Specific guidance is required for addressing the combination of wide range of winds necessary for the required plant performance and the issue of site specific assessment of the structure, typical of an offshore installation.
RINA Guidelines provides support for both targets of structural design verification of offshore foundations and approval of the wind turbine, with due consideration to the integrated structural support system verification and relevant dynamics.
