Bladed-MoorDyn Link

Overview

The objective of this document is to guide the user on the co-simulation between Bladed and MoorDyn (M. Hall and A. Goupee, 2015) using Bladed External Load DLL functionality. The coupling is a “loose coupling” which means that MoorDyn and Bladed have their own integrators and exchange information at the given communication time step specified by the user. For now, this coupling is only available for time-domain calculations in Bladed (i.e., not in steady calculations).

The basic data flows and coupling functionality is illustrated in Figure 1 below. For additional details on the coupling and verification, please refer to conference paper by Alexandre et al., 2023.

Figure 1: MoorDyn External Load dataflow – focused on the external load DLL.

The following materials are provided in the Bladed installation location within a directory named Code Samples\MoorDynExtLoads:

• C++ source code of the MoorDyn External Load.

• Embedded JSON validation schema in the JsonSchema.h file for the External Load input file.

• Visual Studio project file to compile the External Load.

• Example of 15MW VolturnUS-S Bladed model, ready to be used with the working external load, located in the DemoModels folder within the Bladed installation location.

DNV has tested this link with the MoorDyn version 1.01.02. The link is expected to work with Bladed 4.14 and later versions. DNV is not responsible for the support of MoorDyn.

Note

MoorDyn itself is not provided in this demo, and users are directed to MoorDyn GitHub page to obtain the required MoorDyn DLL library and header file (see Requirements section for more information).

Warning

The Bladed-MoorDyn link is only expected to work for time domain simulations.

Article last updated on 26-07-2024