• Wind and Structures
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• v.14 no.2
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• pp.85-112
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• 2011

Wind turbine structures are long slender columns with a rotor and blade assembly placed on the top. These slender structures vibrate due to dynamic environmental forces and its own dynamics. Analysis of the dynamic behavior of wind turbines is fundamental to the stability, performance, operation and safety of these systems. In this paper a simplied approach is outlined for free vibration analysis of these long, slender structures taking the soil-structure interaction into account. The analytical method is based on an Euler-Bernoulli beam-column with elastic end supports. The elastic end-supports are considered to model the flexible nature of the interaction of these systems with soil. A closed-form approximate expression has been derived for the first natural frequency of the system. This new expression is a function of geometric and elastic properties of wind turbine tower and properties of the foundation including soil. The proposed simple expression has been independently validated using an exact numerical method, laboratory based experimental measurement and field measurement of a real wind turbine structure. The results obtained in the paper shows that the proposed expression can be used for a quick assessment of the fundamental frequency of a wind turbine taking the soil-structure interaction into account.

• Smart Structures and Systems
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• v.24 no.1
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• pp.53-65
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• 2019

Misaligned wind-wave and seismic loading render offshore wind turbines suffering from excessive bi-directional vibration. However, most of existing research in this field focused on unidirectional vibration mitigation, which is insufficient for research and real application. Based on the authors' previous work (Sun and Jahangiri 2018), the present study uses a three dimensional pendulum tuned mass damper (3d-PTMD) to mitigate the nacelle structural response in the fore-aft and side-side directions under wind, wave and near-fault ground motions. An analytical model of the offshore wind turbine coupled with the 3d-PTMD is established wherein the interaction between the blades and the tower is modelled. Aerodynamic loading is computed using the Blade Element Momentum (BEM) method where the Prandtl's tip loss factor and the Glauert correction are considered. Wave loading is computed using Morison equation in collaboration with the strip theory. Performance of the 3d-PTMD is examined on a National Renewable Energy Lab (NREL) monopile 5 MW baseline wind turbine under misaligned wind-wave and near-fault ground motions. The robustness of the mitigation performance of the 3d-PTMD under system variations is studied. Dual linear TMDs are used for comparison. Research results show that the 3d-PTMD responds more rapidly and provides better mitigation of the bi-directional response caused by misaligned wind, wave and near-fault ground motions. Under system variations, the 3d-PTMD is found to be more robust than the dual linear TMDs to overcome the detuning effect. Moreover, the 3d-PTMD with a mass ratio of 2% can mitigate the short-term fatigue damage of the offshore wind turbine tower by up to 90%.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers A
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• v.36 no.7
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• pp.731-738
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• 2012

In this study, the evaluation of the aerodynamic characteristics of the NREL Phase VI Rotor System has been performed, for the 7 m/s upwind case using commercial FEA and CFD tools which are ANSYS Mechanical 12.1 and CFX 12.1. The initial operating conditions of the rotor blade include a $3^{\circ}$ tip pitch angle. A numerical simulation was carried out on only the rotor parts, excluding the tower structure based on the equivalent stiffness model, to consider the aeroelastic effect for the numerical simulation using the loosely coupled 2-way fluid-structure interaction method. The blade root bending moment was monitored in real time to obtain reasonable results. To verify the analysis results, the numerical simulation results were compared with the measurements in the form of the root bending moment and the pressure distributions of the NREL/NASA Ames wind tunnel test.