A brief discussion on offshore wind turbine hydrodynamics problem

Recently, offshore renewable energy has received significant attentions from most oceanic countries. Its multiple disciplinary nature appears as a hot research spot. Among those resources, offshore wind has been experiencing a rapid growth with strong industrial and governmental support. Among the research topics related to offshore wind turbine, those related to efficiency and safety issue receive most attentions, and they cover hydrodynamics, aerodynamics, structural dynamics, elasticity and so on. Hydrodynamics is considered as the key of these research for offshore wind turbine. This is not only because it is the fundamental of ocean engineering, but also it is similar to low speed aerodynamics which is the key of wind turbine rotor. In order to provide a comprehensive understanding of the important problems of offshore wind turbine hydrodynamics, we briefly review the evolution of offshore wind turbine and discuss the hydrodynamics problem associated with the research and development activities.