How WEIS works

WEIS is a stack of software that can be used for floating wind turbine design and analysis. The turbine’s components (blade, tower, platform, mooring, and more) are parameterized in a geometry input. The system engineering tool WISDEM determines component masses, costs, and engineering parameters that can be used to determine modeling inputs. A variety of pre-processing tools are used to convert these system engineering models into simulation models.

The modeling_options.yaml determines how the turbine is simulated. We currently support OpenFAST and RAFT.

The analysis_options.yaml determine how to run simulations, either a single run for analysis, a sweep or design of experiments, or an optimization.

A full description of the inputs can be found here (will point to rst when available).

Stack of software tools contained in WEIS

WEIS is “glued” together using openmdao components and groups.

WEIS works best by running examples:

  • 01_aeroelasticse can be used to set up batches of aeroelastic simulations in OpenFAST

  • 02_control_opt can be used to run WEIS from an existing OpenFAST model, and optimize control parameters only

  • 03_NREL5MW_OC3 and 04_NREL5MW_OC4_semi can be used to simulate the OC spar and semi, respectively, from WISDEM geometries.

  • 05_IEA-3.4-130-RWT runs the design load cases (DLCs) for the fixed-bottom IEA-3.4 turbine

  • 06_IEA-15-240-RWT contains several examples for running the IEA-15MW with the VolturnUS platform, including tower and structural controller optimization routines

  • 15_RAFT_Studies contains an example for optimizing a the IEA-15MW with the VolturnUS platform in RAFT

More documentation specific to these examples can be found there, with more to follow.

This documentation only covers a summary of WEIS’s functionality. WEIS can be adapted to solve a wide variety of problems. If you have questions or would like to discuss WEIS’s functionality further, please email dzalkind (at) nrel (dot) gov.

Stack of software tools contained in WEIS