A significant number of wind turbines installed today have reached their designed service life of 20 years, and the number will rise continuously. Most of these turbines promise a more economical performance if they operate for more than 20 years. To assess a continued operation, we have to analyze the load‐bearing capacity of the support structure with respect to site‐specific conditions. Such an analysis requires the comparison of the loads used for the design of the support structure with the actual loads experienced. This publication presents the application of a so‐called inverse load calculation to a 5‐MW wind turbine support structure. The inverse load calculation determines external loads derived from a mechanical description of the support structure and from measured structural responses. Using numerical simulations with the software fast, we investigated the influence of wind‐turbine‐specific effects such as the wind turbine control or the dynamic interaction between the loads and the support structure to the presented inverse load calculation procedure. fast is used to study the inverse calculation of simultaneously acting wind and wave loads, which has not been carried out until now. Furthermore, the application of the inverse load calculation procedure to a real 5‐MW wind turbine support structure is demonstrated. In terms of this practical application, setting up the mechanical system for the support structure using measurement data is discussed. The paper presents results for defined load cases and assesses the accuracy of the inversely derived dynamic loads for both the simulations and the practical application. Copyright © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Physically measuring the dynamic responses of wind turbine support structures enables the calculation of the applied loads using an inverse procedure. In this process, inverse means deriving the inputs/forces from the outputs/responses. This paper presents results of a numerical verification of such an inverse load calculation. For this verification, the comprehensive simulation code FAST is used. FAST accounts for the coupled dynamics of wind inflow, aerodynamics, elasticity and turbine controls. Simulations are run using a 5-MW onshore wind turbine model with a tubular tower. Both the applied loads due to the instantaneous wind field and the resulting system responses are known from the simulations. Using the system responses as inputs to the inverse calculation, the applied loads are calculated, which in this case are the rotor thrust forces. These forces are compared to the rotor thrust forces known from the FAST simulations. The results of these comparisons are presented to assess the accuracy of the inverse calculation. To study the influences of turbine controls, load cases in normal operation between cut-in and rated wind speed, near rated wind speed and between rated and cut-out wind speed are chosen. The presented study shows that the inverse load calculation is capable of computing very good estimates of the rotor thrust. The accuracy of the inverse calculation does not depend on the control activity of the wind turbine. NomenclatureE B = viscous modal damping matrix D = damping matrix i D = modal damping ratio F = Fourier transform of the force vector inv F = inversely calculated load ( ) t f = force vector ( ) f t = force signal 2 f = frequency 0i f = eigenfrequency in Hz ( ) jω H = frequency response function (FRF) matrix ( ) g jω H = generalized FRF matrix i = number of vibration mode M = mass matrix red g M = generalized mass matrix of the reduced system gi m = entry of the generalized mass matrix of the reduced system K = stiffness matrix red g K = generalized stiffness matrix of the reduced system k = stiffness RotThrust = rotor thrust from FAST simulation t = time 0 U = modal matrix ( ) jω Y = Fourier transform of the displacement vector ( ) t y = displacement vector ( ) y t = displacement signal ( ) t y = velocity vector ( ) t y = acceleration vector ω = angular frequency 0i ω = eigenfrequency in rad/s -1
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