Control of flapwise vibrations in wind turbine blades using semi-active tuned mass dampers

The increased size and flexibility of modern multi-Megawatt wind turbines has resulted in the dynamic behaviour of these structures becoming an important design consideration. The aim of this paper is to study the variation in natural frequency of wind turbine blades due to centrifugal stiffening and the potential use of semi-active tuned mass dampers (STMDs) in reducing vibrations in the flapwise direction with changing parameters in the turbine. The parameters considered were the rotational speed of the blades and the stiffness of the blades and nacelle. Two techniques have been employed to determine the natural frequency of a rotating blade. The first employs the Frobenius method to a rotating Bernoulli-Euler beam. These results are compared with the natural frequencies determined from an eigenvalue analysis of the dynamic model of the turbine including nacelle motion, which is developed in this paper. The model derived considers the structural dynamics of the turbine and includes the dynamic coupling between the blades and tower. The semi-active control system developed employs a frequency-tracking algorithm based on the short-time Fourier transform technique. This is used to continually tune the dampers to the dominant frequencies of the system. Numerical simulations have been carried out to study the effectiveness of the STMDs in reducing flapwise vibrations in the system when variations occur in certain parameters of the turbine. Steady and turbulent wind loading has been considered. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.