Title: Reproduction of the wind and earthquake coupled effect on a wind turbine tower in a shaking-table substructure test

Authors: Yingpeng Tian; Tao Wang; Huimeng Zhou

Addresses: Key Laboratory of Earthquake Engineering and Engineering Vibration, Institute of Engineering Mechanics, China Earthquake Administration, Sanhe, Hebei 065201, China ' Key Laboratory of Earthquake Engineering and Engineering Vibration, Institute of Engineering Mechanics, China Earthquake Administration, Sanhe, Hebei 065201, China ' Key Laboratory of Earthquake Engineering and Engineering Vibration, Institute of Engineering Mechanics, China Earthquake Administration, Sanhe, Hebei 065201, China

Abstract: Wind turbines are being used in increasingly complex working environments that generate coupled wind and earthquake effects. Recent projects have tended to construct larger wind turbines to improve efficiency, but this generates more wind-induced vibration. Moreover, different threats are faced by a wind turbine at various stages. During construction, for example, vortex-induced resonance might result in a large lateral displacement of up to 1 metre, making the installation of blades difficult. Meanwhile, during service, the structure of a wind turbine can be damaged by strong gales and sometimes by earthquakes. The present study develops a tuned mass damper, which is designed to mitigate vortex-induced resonance. Shaking-table substructure hybrid tests are conducted to verify the performance of the tuned mass damper for different external loads. The experimental results confirm the effectiveness in terms of suppressing vortex-induced resonance, while the mitigation of the response to wind and earthquakes is limited.

Keywords: tuned mass damper; wind-earthquake coupled effect; wind turbine tower; shaking table; substructure test.

DOI: 10.1504/IJLCPE.2020.108933

International Journal of Lifecycle Performance Engineering, 2020 Vol.4 No.1/2/3, pp.133 - 157

Received: 13 Mar 2019
Accepted: 24 Sep 2019

Published online: 10 Aug 2020 *

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