[image] ABS was proud to support the TetraTurbine team from Dalhousie University (https://www.dal.ca/) as they showcased their innovative project at the 2025 Floating Wind Challenge (https://www.floatingwindchallenge.com/) in Zeebrugge, Belgium. This international event tasked
ABS was proud to support the TetraTurbine team from Dalhousie University as they showcased their innovative project at the 2025 Floating Wind Challenge in Zeebrugge, Belgium. This international event tasked students with designing, constructing and testing floating offshore wind foundation concepts.
The TetraTurbine team secured 3rd place for the best structural design and earned a category award for achieving cost efficiency at full scale.
The TetraTurbine structure features a cost-efficient tetrahedral truss design with cable bracing, a tension leg mooring system for enhanced stability, adjustable turbine mounting and scalable components like steel ballast tanks and seabed-embedded anchors for full-scale applications.
The TetraTurbine design of the floating offshore wind foundation utilizes a tetrahedral truss structure, reinforced with 3mm galvanized steel wire, to achieve high strength and stiffness while minimizing material use and cost.
The structure was designed by the team to be lightweight and efficient with transportability in-mind. Stability is ensured through a tension leg mooring system, where submerged floats below the wave base are paired with gravitational anchors. The anchors' weight exceeds the buoyancy of the floats, maintaining constant tension in the mooring chains and reducing fluctuations in buoyant forces.
Adjustable mounting allows precise control of turbine head height, while steel struts resist compressive forces within the frame. At full scale, steel ballast tanks would replace the prototype’s floats and anchors could be buried in the seabed for increased stability.
The team built this concept with cost efficiency, transportability, and structural integrity in mind for floating offshore wind applications.
Congratulations to the TetraTurbine team from Dalhousie University which includes Andrew Ollerhead, Cara Cripton-Inglis and Amy Kehoe for designing an innovative floating offshore wind foundation.
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