Mitigation of In-Plane Vibrations in Large-Scale Wind Turbine Blades with a Track Tuned Mass Damper

Abstract

To mitigate in-plane vibrations of wind turbine blades, a track tuned mass damper (TMD) is proposed and its performance for mitigating blade in-plane vibration is investigated considering various influence factors. Firstly, the organization and operational principles of the damping control device are explained. Then, the equations of motion of the individual TMD-equipped blade are then deduced from Euler–Lagrange. Secondly, blade’s wind loading is calculated by blade element momentum theory considering the blade rotation effect through the rotating sample spectrum. Thirdly, the dynamical response of the blade based on the MATLAB/SIMULINK tool is calculated. The peak maximum displacement and standard deviation of the blade tip are chosen as the estimation indicators to assess the TMD’s effectiveness of the device considering actually various argument including mass ratio μ, damping ratio ξ, and installation position x₀/L. Based on the assumption that the mass block in the vibration reduction control device has no contact with the inside surface of the blade web in operation, the optimal relative values of mass ratio, damping ratio, and installation position of a single blade are determined as 0.03, 15%, and 0.55, respectively. As a result, the reduction of the peak value and the standard deviation can reach 52.78% and 53.75%, respectively. Therefore, with the optimal parameters, the designed vibration control device effectively not only reduces the blade tip displacement but also avoids the damage due to in-plane vibrations.