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Free Decay Tests

UMaine conducted free-decay simulations in OpenFAST for each of the rigid-body DOFs. The simulations considered a still wind environment and though aerodynamic drag was considered, its effects were minimised by orienting the blades such that they produced minimal drag. The decay simulations considered all DOFs pertaining to the platform, tower, and blades. A similar procedure was adopted using Flexcom, with the exception that the aerodynamic effects were switched off completely, by omitting the coupling between Flexcom and OpenFAST. The natural frequencies of the rigid-body modes of the system were calculated by taking the average period of oscillation over several decay periods. Results are presented in tabular and graphical form below. Close agreement is observed between the UMaine published report and the Flexcom model as expected.