Multiple TLDs on Motion Reduction Control of the Offshore Wind Turbines

Abstract

This study explores the damping effects of tuned liquid dampers (TLDs) on a monopile offshore wind turbine (OWT). The fluid–solid coupling of ANSYS was used to simulate the damping effect of a TLD on the structures. The environmental conditions refer to the IEC-61400-3 and the Design Load Case (DLC) 1.2 for the annual average environmental conditions and DLC 6.2 for the 50-year regression period, and the extreme environmental conditions were used in the study. The turbulent wind field simulation was performed by TurbSim, and the load of wind waves on structures was generated by FAST, which were all developed by the NREL (National Renewable Energy Laboratory). In addition to wind and waves, the seismic force was also considered. The cylindrical TLD was located above the rotor nacelle assembly (RNA). A TLD has different damping effects when acting under wind, wave, and earthquake loads, respectively. The effect of the TLD regarding motion reduction on the OWT under coupled wind, wave, and seismic loads was studied. This study also designed a simple experiment to verify the correctness of the numerical simulation results. Fatigue analysis shows that multi-layer TLDs can extend the fatigue life (37%) of an OWT. In addition, under extreme environmental load conditions, multi-layer TLDs have a better vibration damping performance than single-layer TLDs. The study demonstrates that multi-layer TLDs can be considered as a vibration reduction damper for OWTs.