A modeling analysis of grounding resistance and sea surface potential on the jacket foundation offshore wind turbines

Beijing Jiaotong University, Department of Electrical Engineering, No.3 Shangyuancun Haidian District 100044, Beijing, the People’s Republic of China

Abstract

Offshore wind turbines (WTs) are frequently exposed to the risk from lightning, storm, and waves. As a kind of fixed foundations, jacket foundation can effectively reduce the correlatively risk and loss. In order to provide more information about the lightning protection of jacket foundation, a simulation model has been built by simplifying the hollow steel tubes into a series of solid steel cylinders. And some conclusions on the grounding resistance of jacket foundation have been summarized in this paper by using the GSSAS (Grounding System Safe Analysis Software). According to the simulation results, the actual influential factors of grounding resistance, including the depth of seawater, the thickness of clay layer and the resistivity of gravel layer, have been analysed and compared. It is found that the grounding resistance is influenced most severely by the depth of seawater. In addition, the values of sea surface potential have been calculated by the software GSSAS and the three-dimensional diagrams of potential distribution have been mapped out.