Motion Response and Mooring Safety of a Shallow-Draft Offshore Floating Photovoltaic Platform

Abstract

Offshore floating photovoltaic platforms provide a promising route for expanding solar-power deployment in nearshore marine areas. A time-domain AQWA model is built for a shallow-draft offshore floating photovoltaic platform, with the hydrodynamic loads calculated using three-dimensional potential-flow theory. The platform motion and mooring tension are evaluated under regular-wave conditions with wind and current loads, with emphasis on wave period, wave height, and incident direction. The results show that the pitch response reaches a local peak at T = 3.4 s, where the estimated wavelength is close to the platform length and the pitch-exciting moment is therefore amplified. Both horizontal and angular responses rise almost linearly with wave height in the selected cases. The maximum mooring tension reaches 115 kN, while the corresponding strength safety factor remains above 2.0. These results support the preliminary motion-stability evaluation and mooring-safety assessment of shallow-draft offshore floating photovoltaic platforms.