TY - CHAP

T1 - Towards a Heuristic for Scheduling Offshore Installation Processes

AU - Scholz-Reiter, Bernd

AU - Karimi, Hamid Reza

AU - Lütjen, Michael

AU - Heger, Jens

AU - Schweizer, Anne

N1 - Conference code: 24

PY - 2011

Y1 - 2011

N2 - According to the European Wind Energy Association (EWEA), more than 1.000 offshore wind turbines will be installed within the next ten years from now. Regarding these studies, the prospective transport vessel capacity will be the bottleneck of offshore wind parks installations. Furthermore, first experiences from offshore wind park installations have shown that adverse weather often delays or even completely stops installation processes. Only certain installation processes such as setting groundings are feasible in bad weather, yet others for example the assembly of blades and nacelles require a calm conditions. Our approach is to schedule the offshore installation processes considering seasonal and up-to-date weather forecasts based on a heuristic algorithm. To determine the quality of this heuristic, we previously developed a mathematical model (Mixed Integer Linear Programming -MILP) to calculate the optimal installation schedule. This was done by including different weather conditions, installation processes and sets for vessel loadings. Since the mathematical problem is NP-hard, the MILP is only applicable for small installation scenarios. However, our heuristic is able to consider longer time horizons, multiple vessels and a broader variety of weather conditions. We simulate different weather conditions and compare our heuristic to the results of our MILP using a case study.

AB - According to the European Wind Energy Association (EWEA), more than 1.000 offshore wind turbines will be installed within the next ten years from now. Regarding these studies, the prospective transport vessel capacity will be the bottleneck of offshore wind parks installations. Furthermore, first experiences from offshore wind park installations have shown that adverse weather often delays or even completely stops installation processes. Only certain installation processes such as setting groundings are feasible in bad weather, yet others for example the assembly of blades and nacelles require a calm conditions. Our approach is to schedule the offshore installation processes considering seasonal and up-to-date weather forecasts based on a heuristic algorithm. To determine the quality of this heuristic, we previously developed a mathematical model (Mixed Integer Linear Programming -MILP) to calculate the optimal installation schedule. This was done by including different weather conditions, installation processes and sets for vessel loadings. Since the mathematical problem is NP-hard, the MILP is only applicable for small installation scenarios. However, our heuristic is able to consider longer time horizons, multiple vessels and a broader variety of weather conditions. We simulate different weather conditions and compare our heuristic to the results of our MILP using a case study.

KW - Engineering

UR - http://www.logdynamics.de/publikationen.html?id=277&pubID=495

M3 - Article in conference proceedings

SN - 0-9541307-2-3

SP - 999

EP - 1008

BT - Proceedings of the 24th International Congress on Condition Monitoringand and Diagnostics Engineering Management

A2 - Singh, Maneesh

A2 - Rao, R. BKN

A2 - Liyanage, J. P.

PB - COMADEM International

T2 - 24th International Congress on Condition Monitoring and Diagnostics Engineering Management - COMADEM 2011

Y2 - 30 May 2011 through 1 June 2011

ER -