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Time and Frequency Domain Analysis of Wind Turbine Towers Under Spatially Correlated Wind Field

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Abstract

This work proposes a methodology to evaluate the dynamic behavior of Wind Turbine Towers (WTT) taking into account the effects of wind on its structural components (tower, nacelle, and blades). A model to generate wind velocity signals that are correlated in time and space is adopted, following a usual von Kármán Power Spectral Density (PSD) which has parameters such as turbulence intensities and standard deviations of the wind speed fluctuations in the three directions, velocity profile with height, and decay coefficients of the coherence with the distance between the points of simulation. It is investigated whether the time domain (TD) or frequency domain (FD) analysis is adequate in terms of simulation time, accuracy and computational costs for the evaluation of RMS values of acceleration and displacement signals at specific points of the WTT as well as base reactions. In FD the direct integration of specific PSD (displacements, accelerations, etc.) is employed. Results for a typical simulation are investigated and compared in different situations of wind speed and wind parameters for the simulation of the dynamic behavior of the WTT. The results present the importance of the spatial simulation of wind velocity correlation to account for important final structural behavior.

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Funding

This study was partially funded by National Council for Scientific and Technological Development (CNPq), Grant No. 301719/2017–9. This study was financed in part by the Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior – Brasil (CAPES)—Finance Code 001.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul. Graduate Program in Civil Engineering, Av. Oswaldo Aranha, 99, 3º. Andar, Porto Alegre, RS, 90035-190, Brazil

    Dodani Renan de Morais

  2. Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul. Graduate Program in Mechanical Engineering, Av. Sarmento Leite, 425, sala 202, 2º. Andar, Porto Alegre, RS, 90050-170, Brazil

    Lucas Carminatti Foschiera & Herbert Martins Gomes

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  1. Dodani Renan de Morais
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  2. Lucas Carminatti Foschiera
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Contributions

The idea, methodology and theoretical derivation for this paper were proposed by H.M.G. and L.C.F. The data analysis, finite element analysis were performed by D.R.M. The task of supervision and review are fulfilled by H.M.G. The figures were plotted by D.R.M. All authors commented on previous versions of the manuscript. The revised draft of the manuscript was written by L.C.F. and D.R.M. under the direction of H.M.G. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.

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Correspondence to Herbert Martins Gomes.

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de Morais, D.R., Foschiera, L.C. & Gomes, H.M. Time and Frequency Domain Analysis of Wind Turbine Towers Under Spatially Correlated Wind Field. Int J Steel Struct 21, 2028–2044 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13296-021-00551-5

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