• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers A
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• v.36 no.11
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• pp.1455-1462
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• 2012

As the size of a wind turbine increases, the mechanical structure has to have an increasing mechanical stiffness that is sufficient to withstand mechanical fatigue loads over a lifespan of more than 20 years. However, this leads to a heavier mechanical design, which means a high material cost during wind turbine manufacturing. Therefore, lightweight design of a wind turbine is an important design constraint. Usually, a lightweight mechanical structure has low damping. Therefore, if it is subjected to a disturbance, it will oscillate continuously. This study deals with the active damping control of a wind turbine tower. An algorithm that mitigates the mechanical loads of a wind turbine tower is introduced. The effectiveness of this algorithm is verified through a numerical simulation using GH Bladed, which is a commercial aero-elastic code for wind turbines.