Engineering Papers⌕ Search

SEARCH · Engineering Papers

Results for “variable generation”

Search indexed NASA NTRS and DOE OSTI research on propulsion, heat transfer, battery materials and energy systems. Follow report and document links to the original sources.

Quote a phrase for an exact phrase match. Source license links do not imply unrestricted reuse.

At least 991 records · Page 55
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
DOE OSTI2020

A Model-Free Frequency Control Approach for Diesel-Wind Powered Microgrids

Islanded microgrids usually consist of diesel generators and renewable energy sources (RES) to reduce the operating cost. Such microgrids have shown values for powering remote locations, but introduced unique challenges for frequency control of the grid due to the variability of renewable energy as well as the decoupled design of converter interface in RES. So, supportive control in RES becomes mandatory in such networks. This paper proposes a new dynamic control strategy, based on model-free control (MFC) approach, to support the primary frequency control of such islanded microgrids. The practical values of MFC have been discussed in various domains due to its control capability without modeling procedure and its efficient computation. In particular, we consider the diesel-wind system and the proposed MFC strategy is utilized as an online controller, which computes supplementary control signals for the rotor-side converter of the available wind turbine generators (WTGs). The calculated input signals allow WTGs to respond to frequency variations and improve the frequency response of the system. The controller is implemented and verified using the modified IEEE 33-bus full nonlinear model of the three-phase diesel-wind system in Simulink. Simulation results show the enhanced frequency response from the MFC strategy.

Park, Byungkwon↗
DOE OSTI2024

Timeseries Unlabeled and Labeled Photos, Modeled Stream Elevation, and (Meta)Data of Variably Inundated Streams Across The Yakima River Basin, Washington, United States (v2)

This dataset is associated with the “River Monitoring Photos” (RMP) study and subsequent manuscript (Bao et al. 2025. Monitoring river flow status using low-cost wildlife camera and image segmentation artificial intelligence doi: 10.1016/j.envsoft.2025.106715). Game camera timeseries photos were collected to evaluate stream variable inundation via changes in width. A subset of photos was labeled for training the YOLOv8 and Mask2Former models and used to segment water surface fractions from all the game camera photos.This data package was originally published in March 2024. It was updated in October 2025 (v2) to add additional photos and files associated with the manuscript (i.e., processed data, labeled photos, and trained models). For details on how to navigate data packages generated by this project, see https://data.ess-dive.lbl.gov/portals/PNNLRiverCorridorSFA/About.In addition to a readme, this data package also includes two file-level metadata (FLMD) files that describes each file and two data dictionaries (DD) that describe all column/row headers and variable definitions. This dataset is comprised of (1) file-level metadata; (2) data dictionary; (3) readme; (4) field metadata; and (5) folders containing game camera photos and manuscript-associated files. Each Yakima River Basin site has a folder that contains subfolders for each month photos were collected. There is also a folder for files associated with the manuscript which has subfolders for labeled data, trained models, Yakima River Basin site water surface fractions, and USGS site water surface fractions. All files are .csv, .json, .txt, .yaml, .pth, .pt, or .pdf. We thank the Confederated Tribes and Bands of the Yakama Nation Tribal Council and Yakama Nation Fisheries for working with us to facilitate sample collection and optimization of data usage according to their values and worldview.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗
DOE OSTI2022

Using Energy Storage-Based Grid Forming Inverters for Operational Reserve in Hybrid Diesel Microgrids

In remote arctic communities, where access to a bulk electrical grid interconnection is not available, the implementation of islanded microgrids has been the most viable way to produce and distribute electricity services to their inhabitants. Historically, these islanded grids have relied primarily on diesel generators or hydropower resources to supply the baseload. However, this practice can result in increased expense due to the high costs associated with fuel transportation and the significant amounts of on-site storage necessary when fuel transportation is unavailable during winter months. In order to mitigate this problem, arctic microgrids have started to transition to a hybrid-source operational mode by incorporating renewable energy sources that are inherently variable in nature, such as wind or solar. Due to their highly stochastic behavior, these hybrid-source islanded microgrids can pose potential issues related to power quality due to introduction of rapid net load fluctuations and inability of diesel generators to respond rapidly. In addition, non-firm stochastic sources can require significant idling diesel generator resources to serve as spinning reserves, which is inefficient and wasteful. This work studies the problems that may arise in the transient dynamics of a real-world hybrid diesel microgrid when subjected to a loss of wind generation. Moreover, this work proposes a transition from a diesel spinning reserve to a battery energy-storage system (BESS) operating reserve scheme. The study of the proposed transition is important in establishing the fundamental implication of transient dynamics and the potential benefits of integrating a BESS as a spinning reserve in terms of stability, frequency nadir, and transient voltage deviation. The methods to investigate and validate the transient dynamics relied on both electromagnetic simulation models of GFMIs and a commercially available GFMI in an experimental power hardware-in-the-loop setup. The simulation results showed that the proposed operating reserve scheme improves the power quality of the system in terms of voltage deviation and frequency nadir when the microgrid is subjected to a loss of wind generation scenario. Depending on the simulation cases, adding a GFMI reduced the frequency nadir between 65.3% and 86.7%. Moreover, the reductions in the voltage deviations improved between 3.6% and 23.0%. From these results it can be concluded that the integration of a GFMI can reduce the frequency nadir in a hybrid diesel microgrid, and in turn, reduce diesel consumption, which improves system reliability while reducing fuel expenses. Furthermore, the novelty of this work relies on the fact that the offline simulation results were validated using a power hardware-in-the-loop platform that incorporated a 100 kVA commercially available GFMI as the device under test.

Hernandez-Alvidrez, Javier↗
DOE OSTI2020

Impacts of climate and biophysical variability on global agriculture markets

Agricultural production is highly sensitive to changes in climate and weather patterns. The focus of the great majority of studies assessing climate impacts on agriculture has been on mean changes in agricultural responses. However, the manner in which global agricultural markets respond to the interannual variability of the climate and biophysical shocks is poorly understood. Here we show a strong transmission of interannual variations in climate-induced biophysical yield shocks to agriculture markets, which is magnified further by endogenous market fluctuations. We demonstrate the importance of imperfect versus perfect expectations of market and weather in generating the market fluctuations that play a key role in transferring the interannual variations to markets. We find that the volatility of market prices and consumption could be potentially reduced on average by 55% and 41%, respectively, with improved expectations, where agricultural producers make better decisions to adapt to climate and biophysical variability. We also find much heterogeneity in interannual variability across crops and regions, which is considerably mediated by trade as part of the economic response. Our study provides new insights on climate impacts on agricultural market variability and lays a foundation for further investigating the full range of climate impacts on biophysical and human systems.

Zhao, Xin↗
DOE OSTI2021

Resilience and economics of microgrids with PV, battery storage, and networked diesel generators

Current designs and assessments of microgrids have ignored component reliability, leading to significant errors in predicting a microgrid’s performance while islanded. Existing life cycle cost studies on hybrid microgrids—which combine photovoltaics (PV), battery storage and networked emergency diesel generators—also have not identified all the potential economic opportunities. Reducing the number of emergency diesel generators through reliance on PV and battery, retail bill savings, and demand response and wholesale market revenue streams are all important. This paper provides a new statistical methodology that calculates the impact of distributed energy reliability and variability on a microgrid’s performance and a novel use of the optimization platform REopt to explore multiple cost savings and revenue streams. We examine the impacts for microgrids in California, Maryland, and New Mexico and show that a hybrid microgrid is a more resilient and cost-effective solution than a diesel-only system. Under realistic conditions, a hybrid microgrid can provide higher system reliability when islanded and have a lower life cycle cost under multiple market conditions than a traditional diesel generator-based system. The improved performance of the hybrid system is resilient to conditions experienced over the last 20 years in solar irradiance and sees little degradation in performance immediately after a hurricane. The cost savings to provide this more resilient backup power system as compared to a diesel-only microgrid are significant. The net present cost for a hybrid microgrid is 19% lower in New Mexico and 35% lower in Maryland than a diesel-only microgrid. In California, the net present cost of the hybrid microgrid is negative because, unlike a diesel-only microgrid, a hybrid microgrid has lower life cycle costs than the power costs without a microgrid.

25 ENERGY STORAGE↗
DOE OSTI2022

Projected network performance for next generation aerosol monitoring systems

Aerosol monitoring for radioactivity is a mature and proven technology. However, by improving key specifications of aerosol monitoring equipment, more samples per day can be collected and analyzed with the same minimum detectable concentrations as current systems. This work models hypothetical releases of 140 Ba and 131 I over a range of magnitudes corresponding to the inventory produced from the fission of about 100 g to 1 kiloton TNT-equivalent of 235 U. The releases occur over an entire year to incorporate the natural variability in atmospheric transport. Sampling equipment located at the 79 locations for radionuclide stations identified in the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty (CTBT) for the International Monitoring System are used to determine the detections of the individual releases. Alternative collection schemes in next generation equipment that collect 2, 3, or 4 samples per day, rather than the current 1 sample per day, would result in detections in many more samples at more stations with detections for a given release level. The authors posit that next generation equipment will result in increased network resilience to outages and improved source-location capability for lower yield source releases. The application of dual-detector and coincidence measurements to these systems would significantly boost sensitivity for some isotopes and would further enhance the monitoring capability.

46 INSTRUMENTATION RELATED TO NUCLEAR SCIENCE AND ↗
DOE OSTI2021

Variability of near-fault seismic risk to reinforced concrete buildings based on high-resolution physics-based ground motion simulations

Broadband physics-based simulated earthquake ground motions are utilized to characterize the regional-scale seismic risk to modern reinforced concrete (RC) structures. A highly dense dataset of ground motions covering a 100-km urn:x-wiley:00988847:media:eqe3413:eqe3413-math-0001 40-km domain was generated using kinematic fault rupture models with varying rupture characteristics to represent shallow crustal earthquakes and resolved up to frequencies of 5 Hz. Over 40,000 nonlinear response history simulations of short- and mid-rise RC special moment frame buildings were conducted using simulation models that are capable of representing nonlinear behavior and component deterioration effects. The spatial variability of structural risk within a single earthquake scenario and between different rupture scenarios is examined, and the regions of strongest directivity effects and highest structural demands are identified. The structural demands may vary by factor of up to 8.0 at very short distances from the fault, and the large dispersion in the demands decreases significantly beyond a distance of 15 km. The interstory drift and member rotation demands are substantially impacted by important features of the geological structure and the characteristics of the rupture scenarios, particularly the presence of localized high-slip regions. The frequency characteristics of the structures are found to play an important role in determining the effects of near-fault ground motions on the structural response and expected damage. The results of this study suggest that the simulated ground motions, particularly those generated using the hybrid rupture approach, may offer reasonable structural risk estimates for low-frequency structures and conservative estimates for high-frequency structures.

58 GEOSCIENCES↗
DOE OSTI2026

Data and scripts associated with “Moisture content modulates DOM thermodynamic regulation of oxygen consumption in drying streambed sediments”

This data package is associated with the publication “Moisture content modulates DOM thermodynamic regulation of oxygen consumption in drying streambed sediments” published in Scientific Reports (Garayburu-Caruso et al., 2026). The package contains processed data products and scripts used to quantify how drying and re-inundation of riverbed sediments influence dissolved organic matter (DOM) thermodynamic properties and their relationship with sediment oxygen (O₂) consumption across 33 stream sites in the contiguous United States. The data package contains DOM thermodynamic metrics (e.g., Gibbs free energy of carbon oxidation and thermodynamic efficiency), and O₂ consumption along with watershed-scale climate and land-cover metrics used as explanatory variables in the analyses. Underlying unprocessed and processed ultrahigh-resolution mass spectrometry data, oxygen consumption rates from laboratory moisture-manipulation experiments, within-sample environmental properties, sediment moisture content and contextual field measurements are archived separately at https://data.ess-dive.lbl.gov/datasets/doi:10.15485/2428003 (Laan et al., 2024) and https://data.ess-dive.lbl.gov/datasets/doi:10.15485/1923689 (Forbes et al.,2023). A preliminary version of this data package was published in February 2026 at the time of manuscript submission. It was updated in June 2026, at the time of manuscript acceptance, to include the finalized data and additional metadata (readme, data dictionary, and file level metadata). For details on how to navigate data packages generated by this project, see https://data.ess-dive.lbl.gov/portals/PNNLRiverCorridorSFA/About. In addition to a readme, this data package also includes a file-level metadata (FLMD) file that describes each file and a data dictionary (DD) that describes all column/row headers and variable definitions. At the top level, the data package is organized into five main folders: (1) Data, (2)Figures, (3) Map, (4) GAM_Reulsts, and (5) src. The Data folder contains analysis-ready tabular files with oxygen consumption rates, DOM thermodynamic properties by site and treatment, site-level environmental variables, watershed-scale metrics, and other derived variables referenced in the manuscript. The Figures folder contains static image files associated with the main text and supplemental figures, while the Map folder includes spatial data and map-layer files used to create the sampling-location map. The GAM results folder contains the results for each of the general additive model (GAM).The src folder contains R scripts used to perform data processing, statistical analyses (including clustering, generalized additive models, and threshold analysis), and figure generation. This data package is associated with a GitHub repository found at https://github.com/WHONDRS-Hub/ECA_DOM_Thermodynamics.

Dissolved organic matter↗
DOE OSTI2023

Sources of error in detonation calorimeters and error analysis for neat 2,4,6-triamino-1,3,5- trinitrobenzene (TATB)

Here, a calorimeter for measuring heats of detonation at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory is described. A calibration precision of 0.2 % at the 95 % confidence interval (CI) is reported. Sources of uncertainty are discussed, including nonequivalent sources, which are those arising from differences between calibration and experimental tests. The systematic error due to nonequivalent sources is bounded to 0.19–0.22 % of the measured heat for a standard detonation test where the confinement material is gold. The recommendation is to correct for the systematic error by adding 0.19 % to the reported value and adding 0.03 % to the uncertainty. It is demonstrated that the precision of a detonation test is variable with testing duration because a source of uncertainty resides in the thermodynamic correction factor k6, which accounts for the contribution to heat by stirring; the generated power is additive and therefore highly impacted by total test time. The relative proportion also varies with the magnitude of heat release and sample size, adding variance to the weight of the error arising from the correction factor. A full error analysis based on the described sources of uncertainty is developed. The methodology is applied to a test series on neat 2,4,6-triamino-1,3,5- trinitrobenzene (TATB), demonstrating an ultimate precision of 0.7 % (single test) for materials testing and a relative standard deviation of 1.8 %.

47 OTHER INSTRUMENTATION↗
DOE OSTI2024

$t\overline{t}b\overline{b}$ at NLO precision in a variable flavor number scheme

Top-quark pair production in association with two $b$-jets is computed at next-to-leading order QCD precision, including effects of the $b$-quark mass, and matched to a $t\overline{t}$+jets simulation in a variable flavor number scheme. The Monte Carlo realization of this method, called fusing, consistently embeds the four-flavor calculation in a particle-level event generator. As a first phenomenological application, we present observables relevant to the data-driven estimation of irreducible backgrounds to $t\overline{t}H$ -production.

72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS↗
DOE OSTI2025

Tunable Spin Qubit Pairs in Quantum Dot–Molecule Conjugates

Organic molecules and quantum dots (QDs) have both shown promise as materials that can host quantum bits (qubits). This is in part because of their synthetic tunability. The current work employs a combination of both materials to demonstrate a series of tunable quantum dot–organic molecule conjugates that can both host photogenerated spin-based qubit pairs (SQPs) and sensitize molecular triplet states. The photogenerated qubit pairs, composed of a spin-correlated radical pair (SCRP), are particularly intriguing since they can be initialized in well-defined, nonthermally populated, quantum states. Additionally, the radical pair enables charge recombination to a polarized molecular triplet state, also in a well-defined quantum state. The materials underlying this system are an organic molecular chromophore and electron donor, 9,10-bis(phenylethynyl)anthracene, and a quantum dot acceptor composed of ZnO. We prepare a series of quantum dot–molecule conjugates that possess variable quantum dot size and two different linker lengths connecting the two moieties. Optical spectroscopy revealed that the QD–molecule conjugates undergo photoexcited charge separation to generate long-lived charge-separated radical pairs. The resulting spin states are probed using light-induced time-resolved electron paramagnetic resonance (TR-EPR) spectroscopy, revealing the presence of singlet-generated SCRPs and molecular triplet states. Notably, the EPR spectra of the radical pairs are dependent on the geometry of this highly tunable system. The g value of the ZnO QD anion is size tunable, and the line widths are influenced by radical pair separation. Overall, this work demonstrates the power of synthetic tunability in adjusting the spin specific addressability, satisfying a key requirement of functional qubit systems.

37 INORGANIC, ORGANIC, PHYSICAL, AND ANALYTICAL CH↗
DOE OSTI2023

How do North American weather regimes drive wind energy at the sub-seasonal to seasonal timescales?

Abstract There has been an increasing need for forecasting power generation at the subseasonal to seasonal (S2S) timescales to support the operation, management, and planning of the wind-energy system. At the S2S timescales, atmospheric variability is largely related to recurrent and persistent weather patterns, referred to as weather regimes (WRs). In this study, we identify four WRs that influence wind resources over North America using a universal two-stage procedure approach. These WRs are responsible for large-scale wind and power production anomalies over the CONUS at the S2S timescales. The WR-based reconstruction explains up to 40% of the monthly variance of power production over the western United States, and the explanatory power of WRs generally increases with the increase of timescales. The identified relationship between WRs and power production reveals the potential and limitations of the regional WR-based wind resource assessment over different regions of the CONUS across multiple timescales.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗
DOE OSTI2021

Application of real‐time nonlinear model predictive control for wave energy conversion

Abstract This article presents an approach to implement a Nonlinear Model Predictive Controller (NMPC) in real‐time with a non‐standard cost index. The proposed technique's applications are presented to maximize the energy produced by a Wave Energy Converter (WEC) when the cost index is a non‐quadratic piecewise discontinuous functional of some design variables. The presented framework is based on pseudo‐quadratisation and weight scheduling, which is implemented using the ACADO toolkit for MATLAB/Simulink. The proposed strategy features code generation and deployment on the real‐time target machines for industrial applications. The simulations and experiments confirm the success of the proposed approach in achieving the feasible operation of the NMPC and an optimal power capture by the wave energy converters.

16 TIDAL AND WAVE POWER↗
DOE OSTI2024

General Applications for Hamilton Vantage (GenApps for Vantage) v0.6.1

General applications for Hamilton Vantage is a flexible liquid handling method used to automate the most widely applicable types of automated liquid transfers. General applications can also be used as a tool to onboard new fully-automated workflows by breaking them down step by step into single transfers. The goal of General Applications is to make using the Hamilton Vantage liquid handler as easy & practical as using a handheld pipette for the end user. The software supports plate-to-plate transfers for a variety of method types including: Stamp: One-to-One, Stamp: One-To-Many, Split, Combine, Hitpick, and Qtray plating. General Applications eliminates the need for automation engineers to customize individual methods for each new workflow that gets onboarded. Steps can be customized within GenApps according to the needs of the researcher. The software utilizes a GUI to prompt the users to input variables – Allowing for flexible control over plate types, transfer volumes, number of replicates, tip types, liquid classes, mixing steps, aspiration/dispense heights and more. General Applications also generates a deck image and setup instructions to guide the researcher on how to load the deck and start the instrument.

Yoder, Sam↗
DOE OSTI2022

Insights on sources and formation mechanisms of liquid-bearing clouds over MOSAiC examined from a Lagrangian framework

Understanding Arctic stratiform liquid-bearing cloud life cycles and properly representing these life cycles in models is crucial for evaluations of cloud feedbacks as well as the faithfulness of climate projections for this rapidly warming region. Examination of cloud life cycles typically requires analyses of cloud evolution and origins on short time scales, on the order of hours to several days. Measurements from the recent Multidisciplinary drifting Observatory for the Study of Arctic Climate (MOSAiC) expedition provide a unique view of the current state of the central Arctic over an annual cycle. Here, we use the MOSAiC radiosonde measurements to detect liquid-bearing cloud layers over full atmospheric columns and to examine the cloud-generating air masses’ properties. We perform 5-day (120 h) back-trajectory calculations for every detected cloud and cluster them using a unique set of variables extracted from these trajectories informed by ERA5 reanalysis data. This clustering method enables us to separate between the air mass source regions such as ice-covered Arctic and midlatitude open water. We find that moisture intrusions into the central Arctic typically result in multilayer liquid-bearing cloud structures and that more than half of multilayer profiles include overlying liquid-bearing clouds originating in different types of air masses. Finally, we conclude that Arctic cloud formation via prolonged radiative cooling of elevated stable subsaturated air masses circulating over the Arctic can occur frequently (up to 20% of detected clouds in the sounding data set) and may lead to a significant impact of ensuing clouds on the surface energy budget, including net surface warming in some cases.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗
DOE OSTI2020

A New Process for Carbon Dioxide Conversion to Fuel

In this project, TDA developed a new mixed metal oxide-based sorbent that converts CO 2 (captured from coal fired power plant) to CO, which can then be combined with renewable H 2 generated by water electrolysis to produce different liquid fuels. TDA’s absorbent-based CO 2 conversion process uses a redox process, which splits the reverse water gas shift reaction steps into two stages: CO 2 reduction to CO and H 2 oxidation to H 2 O and eliminates the equilibrium limitations. The CO produced in the two-stage reactor system can then be further reacted with renewable H 2 to produce methanol, naphtha, diesel, or gasoline. We worked with the Gas Technology Institute (GTI) and Advanced Power & Energy Program (APEP) of University of California, Irvine (UCI) to design and develop the liquid fuel synthesis process that is built around this new material. We demonstrated the techno-economic viability of the new sorbent based redox process to convert CO 2 into synthesis gas by: 1) demonstrating continuous carbon dioxide reduction in a prototype test system for over 500 hours while converting up to 0.4 kg CO 2 /day. With the successful completion of the R&D effort, the technology is now ready for a larger pilot-scale demonstration and the technology readiness has been raised from TRL 3 to TRL 5. In collaboration UCI, we also completed a high-fidelity process design and economic analysis. The required selling price (RSP) for methanol (Case 1 H2-MeOH) is $\$$3.06/gal, naphtha and diesel (Case 2 H2-FT) are $\$$6.21/gal and $\$$8.91/gal, and for gasoline (Case 3 H2-MTG) is $\$$6.96/gal on a 2011 dollar basis. To put these costs in perspective, the recent (June 2020) U.S. price for methanol made from natural gas is about $\$$1.19/gal according to Methanex, a major methanol producer in North America. The recent (June 2, 2020) California prices for gasoline and diesel with California’s strict specifications are $\$$3.35/gal and $\$$3.73/gal according to the U.S. Energy Information Agency. On the other hand, it should be noted that the gasoline and diesel produced by the designs of Case 2 and Case 3 would be both nitrogen and sulfur free. These RSPs are based on a cost of imported electricity of $\$$64/MWh based on the low-end current wind generated electricity cost (Genevieve and Ramsden, Wind Electrolysis: Hydrogen Cost Optimization, Technical Report, June 2011, NREL/TP-5600-50408). This cost is by far the largest component of the variable costs used in computing the RSPs. The cost of the imported electricity has to approach zero for the RSP to be competitive for methanol produced in Case 1 and naphtha and diesel produced in Case 2 while the cost of electricity has to be less than $\$$10/MWh for gasoline produced in Case 3.

01 COAL, LIGNITE, AND PEAT↗
DOE OSTI2023

Supply Chain Cybersecurity Recommendations for Solar Photovoltaics

Solar photovoltaic (PV) cybersecurity is a growing field of research. As deployments of solar PV has increased, cyber risk has also increased. However, utility solar PV installations are not required to comply with North American Electric Reliability Corporation (NERC) Critical Infrastructure Protection (CIP) unless they meet a minimum generation threshold of 75 Megawatts (MW). Individual residential scale solar PV deployments will not meet that generation threshold and are therefore excluded from NERC CIP requirements. With most solar installations below 75MW, solar PV has been deployed with minimal oversight and highly variable cybersecurity maturity. The resources that make up the digital supply chain can include software, code, data, as well as other digital components. However as clean energy technology advances, cybersecurity threats and vulnerabilities continue to evolve and grow in sophistication. Solar PV faces a unique challenge in which it can be deployed in residential buildings and purchased by a consumer directly. This makes the supply chain of PV a unique challenge, where responsible parties for cybersecurity vary widely depending on the type of solar PV being deployed. Supply chain cybersecurity for solar PV represents a critical area for ensuring safe operations as the U.S. moves towards a clean energy future.

14 SOLAR ENERGY↗
DOE OSTI2026

A Flexible Quasi-Static Mooring Design Optimization Method for Floating Structures

This paper presents a flexible and efficient design method for optimizing the mooring systems of floating structures. Mooring system optimization is challenging because of the strong nonlinearity of mooring system behavior and the many technical constraints that must be satisfied. Furthermore, different mooring configurations can have very different design spaces. While some successful examples of mooring design optimization exist in the literature, developing an optimization approach that can work across various mooring design problems is a larger challenge. We present such a method based on a flexible parameterization that allows a wide variety of mooring designs to be described by a list of variables, a quasi-static mooring model that provides efficient evaluation of a mooring design without directly considering mooring system dynamics, and an optimization framework that generates, evaluates, and adjusts the mooring design while considering user-specified constraints such as offset limits, strength safety factors, and seabed contact limits. We demonstrate the design optimization framework on four mooring design problems, each for a different type of mooring system. We compare the use of different design modes to simplify the optimization problem, showing that they can reduce the computation time by up to 75%. We also compare different optimization algorithms and find that the resulting computational speed can vary by up to 51 times. We perform a sensitivity study on one design and find that the local sensitivity of anchoring radius to water depth has a positive correlation of 0.29, but the global sensitivity shows large nonlinearities. Lastly, we perform a coupled dynamic analysis on one of the optimized designs and find that the predicted mean platform motions and mooring line tensions are within 1% of dynamic results and the extreme motions and tensions are within 14%. Lastly, we show that a DEA-Chain-Polyester mooring configuration is cost-optimal for the given design problem of the demonstrations, which aligns with general industry practice.

16 TIDAL AND WAVE POWER↗