Profile
Dr Stephane Kovacs
Research Fellow
Stéphane Kovacs is a multidisciplinary professional with a PhD in mechanical engineering from the University of Aberdeen and industrial experience, interested in energy engineering and innovative thinking.
At the University of Exeter, Stéphane works on the technology assessment of the JAVELIN Anchor developed by Reflex Marine Ltd for Floating Offshore Wind application. The JAVELIN anchor demonstration program has received funding from the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology (DSIT).
Anchoring and mooring systems are identified as a key area of innovation in the context of recent increasing demand in Floating Offshore Wind installations. The deepset JAVELIN Tensile anchor provides a competitive anchoring solution for Floating Offshore Wind installed with low cost work vessel and proven drilling technique. The strength of the material is analysed in Ansys for several angles and the maximum load cases are modelled in hydrodynamic software Orcaflex to simulate the dynamics of the JAVELIN anchor for several sea state, soil resistance and mooring configurations, taking into account the coupled dynamics between wind turbine, floater and mooring systems.
The evaluation of the developed technology produces robust scenarios for deployment in large scale floating offshore wind installations.