Vol. 21, No. 6, pp. 500-510 (2025)
EXPERIMENTAL AND NUMERICAL ANALYSIS ON THE TENSILE-BEARING
CAPACITY OF AN INNOVATIVE OFFSHORE FLOATING
PHOTOVOLTAIC PLATFORM CONNECTOR
Zhi-Yong Zheng 1, 2, Hong-Bo Liu 1, 3, *, Liu-Lu Guo 3, Ji-Jian Lian 3, Xiang-Yu Yan 4 and Ye Yao 4
1 School of Water Conservancy and Hydroelectric Power, Hebei University of Engineering, Handan 056000, China
2 Hebei Institute of Mechanical and Electrical Technology, Xingtai 054000, China
3 Department of Civil Engineering, Tianjin University, Tianjin 300072, China
4 School of Ocean Energy, Tianjin University of Technology, Tianjin 300384, China
*(Corresponding author: E-mail:This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.)
Received: 5 February 2025; Revised: 31 May 2025; Accepted: 31 May 2025
DOI:10.18057/IJASC.2025.21.6.3
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ABSTRACT
Offshore floating photovoltaic (OFPV) systems have attracted considerable attention from the scientific community because of their broad application prospects. A multi-module configuration interconnected via connectors is typically used in OFPV platforms. The tensile-bearing capacity of the connectors is crucial to ensure the overall safety of OFPV platforms. In this study, the tensile-bearing capacity of an innovative connector was investigated by experiments and numerical simulations. The numerical simulation results conformed well with those from experiments, with a relative error of less than 10%. Subsequently, The tensile mechanism of the connectors was analyzed, leading to the derivation of equations used to determine the tensile-bearing capacity of the OFPV platform connector under two distinct failure modes. Finally, a parametric study was conducted to elucidate the relationship between the tensile-bearing capacity of the connectors and the connecting pipe and baseplate thicknesses. The results obtained from the derived equations agreed well with those from numerical simulations, indicating that the equations could be used to determine the tensile-bearing capacity of OFPV platform connectors. This study lays the theoretical foundation for the design and application of OFPV structures.
KEYWORDS
Offshore floating photovoltaic platform, Connector, Tensile-bearing capacity, Experimental investigation, Numerical analysis
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