European research project “EXCHANGE-Wind – Experimental & Computational Hybrid Assessment for Resilient, New-Generation Floating Wind Farms”
WindFloat®-Technologie, installed off the coasts of Portugal and Scotland
RPTU Kaiserslautern-Landau is taking an active role in the European research project EXCHANGE-Wind – Experimental & Computational Hybrid Assessment for Resilient, New Generation Floating Wind Farms. The project brings together an international consortium of universities, research institutions, and industrial partners with the common goal of supporting the next generation of offshore wind energy systems.
Offshore wind energy is becoming increasingly important for the transition toward a cleaner and more sustainable energy future. Wind farms at sea offer great potential, especially because offshore winds are usually stronger and more stable than on land. At the same time, offshore wind turbines are exposed to very demanding environmental conditions. They must resist wind, waves, storms, corrosion, operational loads, and, in some regions, earthquakes. Since these structures are often located far from the coast, inspection, maintenance, and repair are also more difficult and costly than for onshore systems.
These challenges are even more important for floating offshore wind turbines, which are expected to play a major role in deep-water applications. Floating systems open the possibility of installing wind farms in areas where fixed-bottom foundations are no longer practical or economical. However, their behaviour is complex because the turbine, floating platform, mooring lines, anchors, seabed, wind, and waves interact with each other. A reliable assessment of these systems therefore requires a combination of experimental testing, advanced numerical modelling, monitoring technologies, and probabilistic risk analysis.
The main aim of EXCHANGE-Wind is to improve the understanding, assessment, and resilience of offshore wind turbines and wind farms under operational and extreme loading conditions. The project looks at the problem from different scales: from individual structural components, such as welded steel connections and anchors, to complete offshore wind turbines and finally to entire wind farms considered as infrastructure networks. This broader view is important because the safety and performance of a wind farm depend not only on single turbines, but also on how the whole system behaves during normal operation and after extreme events.
The project methodology combines experimental, computational, and probabilistic approaches. Laboratory tests will be used to investigate important physical phenomena such as fatigue in steel components, cyclic degradation of soils, anchor behaviour, and the dynamic response of fixed-bottom and floating offshore wind turbines. These experiments will provide valuable data for validating numerical models and improving the reliability of engineering predictions.
In parallel, advanced computational models will be developed to simulate the behaviour of offshore wind turbines under combined loading conditions. These models will consider soil–structure interaction and soil–fluid–structure interaction, which are essential for understanding how the turbine, foundation, seabed, and surrounding environment influence each other. The project will also develop simplified and surrogate models that can be used for a large number of simulations, supporting probabilistic vulnerability, risk, and resilience assessment.
A key aspect of EXCHANGE-Wind is the consideration of multiple hazards. Offshore wind turbines are not affected by one single action during their lifetime. Wind, waves, operational loads, storms, and earthquakes may occur in different combinations and influence the structural response of the turbine. For this reason, the project aims to develop methods that can describe the combined effect of these actions and support more realistic performance assessment of offshore wind systems.
Workflow of the EXCHANGE-Wind project
RPTU will contribute particularly to the assessment of offshore wind turbine failure probability under combined hazard loading. This includes the investigation of structural response under wind, wave, and earthquake effects, as well as the development of vulnerability and fragility models. These models are important because they help estimate the probability that a turbine reaches certain damage or performance limits under different hazard scenarios. Through this work, RPTU contributes to a better understanding of how offshore wind turbines behave under extreme conditions and how their reliability can be assessed in a practical and scientifically sound way.
This contribution is closely connected to the project’s work on multi-hazard vulnerability and risk analysis. The results are expected to support safer design approaches, improved operation and maintenance strategies, and more informed decision-making for offshore wind farms. In the long term, this can help reduce downtime, improve structural safety, and increase the resilience of offshore renewable energy infrastructure.
Beyond the technical research, EXCHANGE-Wind also has a strong collaboration and training dimension. The project is based on staff exchanges between academic and industrial partners, allowing researchers to work in different institutions, share expertise, access advanced laboratory and computational facilities, and build long-term international cooperation. This exchange of knowledge is essential for transferring scientific developments into practical engineering applications.
Through its participation in EXCHANGE-Wind, RPTU strengthens its role in international research on structural dynamics, multi-hazard assessment, and resilient energy systems. The project contributes to the broader goal of making offshore wind energy not only more efficient, but also safer, more reliable, and better prepared for the complex environmental challenges of the future.
