Towards better fatigue predictions in large offshore wind turbines: A review of climate, aero-hydrodynamic, and computational approaches

The rapid increase of offshore wind turbines size has made fatigue calculation a critical design and assessment challenge. Increasing turbine dimensions, hub heights, and environmental exposure introduce significant uncertainty across all the steps of fatigue assessment, while detailed long-term simulations remain computationally demanding.This review aims at providing a structured overview of the engineering-standard framework used for fatigue prediction in large offshore wind turbines, encompassing climatological characterization, load evaluation, and fatigue damage calculation. Across the entire estimation chain – from wind and wave data characterization and modeling, through aerodynamic and hydrodynamic load evaluation, to structural modeling and fatigue assessment – multiple commonly adopted approaches are systematically reviewed and compared.In addition, the review explicitly discusses, for all the above-mentioned sections, the trade-offs between modeling fidelity and computational cost associated with different methodological choices, highlighting their impact on fatigue predictions. By adopting this broad, system-level perspective aligned with engineering practice and design standards - rather than focusing exclusively on latest academic development - this work supports informed method selection for design optimization, iterative assessment procedures, and fatigue-oriented design of large offshore wind turbines.