Abstract
Wind power is a substantial resource to assist global efforts on the decarbonization of energy. The drive to increase capacity has led to ever-increasing blade tip heights and lightweight, slender towers. These structures are subject to a variety of environmental loads that give rise to vibrations with potentially catastrophic consequences, making the mitigation of the tower’s structural vibrations an important factor for low maintenance requirements and reduced damage risk. Recent advances in the most important vibration control methods for wind turbine towers are presented in this paper, exploring the impact of the installation environment harshness on the performance of state-of-the-art devices. An overview of the typical structural characteristics of a modern wind turbine tower is followed by a discussion of typical damages and their link to known collapse cases. Furthermore, the vibration properties of towers in harsh multi-hazard environments are presented and the typical design options are discussed. A comprehensive review of the most promising passive, active, and semi-active vibration control methods is conducted, focusing on recent advances around novel concepts and analyses of their performance under multiple environmental loads, including wind, waves, currents, and seismic excitations. The review highlights the benefits of installing structural systems in reducing the vibrational load of towers and therefore increasing their structural reliability and resilience to extreme events. It is also found that the stochastic nature of the typical tower loads remains a key issue for the design and the performance of the state-of-the-art vibration control methods.
Original language | English |
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Article number | 7536 |
Number of pages | 37 |
Journal | Energies |
Volume | 14 |
Issue number | 22 |
DOIs | |
Publication status | Published - 11 Nov 2021 |
Bibliographical note
Funding Information:The authors would like to acknowledge the contribution of the COST Action CA20109—MODULAR ENERGY ISLANDS FOR SUSTAINABILITY AND RESILIENCE for the fruitful discussions and the support to their research activities.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2021 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland.
Keywords
- Multi-hazard
- Review
- Tuned liquid column damper
- Tuned mass damper
- Vibration control
- Wind turbine tower
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- Renewable Energy, Sustainability and the Environment
- Fuel Technology
- Energy Engineering and Power Technology
- Energy (miscellaneous)
- Control and Optimization
- Electrical and Electronic Engineering