Edgewise vibration control of wind turbine blades using roller and liquid dampers

Abstract

This paper deals with the passive vibration control of edgewise vibrations by means of roller dampers and tuned liquid column dampers (TLCDs). For a rotating blade, the large centrifugal acceleration makes it possible to use roller dampers or TLCDs with rather small masses for effectively suppressing edgewise vibrations. The roller dampers are more volumetrically efficient due to the higher mass density of the steel comparing with the liquid. On the other hand, TLCDs have their advantage that it is easier to specify the optimum damping of the damper by changing the opening ratio of the orifice. In this paper, 2-DOF nonlinear models are suggested for tuning a roller damper or a TLCD attached to a rotating wind turbine blade, ignoring the coupling between the blade and the tower. The decoupled optimization is verified by incorporating the optimized damper into a more sophisticated 13- DOF wind turbine model with due consideration of the coupled blade-tower-drivetrain vibrations, quasi-static aeroelasticity as well as a collective pitch controller. Performances of the dampers are compared in terms of the control efficiency and the practical applications. The results indicate that roller dampers and TLCDs at optimal tuning can effectively suppress the dynamic response of wind turbine blades.