Engineering firm HR Wallingford collaborated with the US' Coastal and Hydraulics Laboratory on the research using computational fluid dynamics that can show how floating structures and cables respond in realistic weather sea conditions.
"Being able to understand and predict the behaviour of offshore floating structures, under typical or extreme environmental loads, is central to being able to assess their viability," said the British firm.
"This is particularly important in the case of offshore renewable energy where devices are intentionally placed in highly energetic marine sites," it added.
The tool kit comprises computational fluid dynamics produced by using open-source software Proteus and multi-body dynamics from the another open source platform.
Tristan de Lataillade, visiting researcher at HR Wallingford, said: "What our new research shows is that by combining open-source numerical tools, we have the potential to simulate, with accuracy, the response of complex offshore floating structures to environmental loads in the marine environment."
