Probabilistic risk assessment on wind turbine towers subjected to cyclone‐induced wind loads

Abstract

A probabilistic risk assessment to estimate the economic impact on wind turbine towers subjected to cyclone-induced wind loads is applied. An event-based probabilistic framework is used to assess the risk parameters for selected hazard events. The results are integrated considering all uncertainties related to each part of the process in a probabilistic formal way. The hazard is defined by a set of nonoverlapping stochastic events that exhaust the considered sample space, including the spatial distribution, the annual frequency, and the randomness of the hazard intensity. The vulnerability is defined in terms of the first and second statistical moments: the expected damage and its corresponding variance (or standard deviation) for a certain type of wind turbine towers. The vulnerability component of the model is an important contribution of the study; it uses a realistic modeling of the wind field, and instead of one (as in other studies), three failure modes are considered to characterize the vulnerability. The risk is expressed in economic terms, namely, the single-event expected loss, the average annual loss, the pure premium, and the loss exceedance curve. The approach is applied to a probabilistic tropical cyclone wind risk assessment on 3001 wind turbine towers from 65 wind farms in Mexico. It is concluded that the selected metrics are of especial importance for risk retention (financing), particularly if schemes or risk transfer instruments are to be defined, and therefore, they will be a very valuable contribution to further studies in defining strategies for financial protection of national infrastructure against wind disasters induced by cyclones.

Development of fragility curves of land‐based wind turbines with tuned mass dampers under cyclone and seismic loading

“…All the simulations assume that there is no yaw angle between the axis of the turbine and the wind direction. This oversimplification of the expected behavior of wind during a cyclone is primarily made owing to concordance and comparison against the results obtained from the time history analysis performed by Jaimes et al 5 Similar criteria have been adopted, for example, by Amirinia and Jung, 36 and also in some analyses by Hallowell et al 9 …”

“…The selection for the horizontal‐axis wind turbines studied in this research was derived from the turbines presented in the work of Jaimes et al 5 They modeled the structures based on the general dimensions of typical turbines from Mexican wind farms. The height to the hub guided the dimensioning of the three turbines.…”

“…The values assumed for the simulation of these parameters range from 15 to 150 hPa, and 0 to 200 km, respectively, to ensure similitude between the values employed in the simulations and those from the model used 35 . All the computed parameters assumed the turbines located at a latitude of 16.5814°, as in Jaimes et al 5 …”

“…These scenarios have constantly motivated researchers to improve the assessment of economic risk and hazard evaluation. Jaimes et al 5 performed a probabilistic evaluation of the risk for wind farms located in Mexico, subjected to cyclone‐induced wind loads. Martín del Campo and Pozos‐Estrada 6 performed a fragility analysis of a hypothetical turbine located in Southwest Mexico, evaluating combined earthquake and wind loads from simulated records.…”

The impact of tropical cyclones on potential offshore wind farms

“…Martín del Campo et al Martín del Campo et al (2021) found that modifying the structure of onshore turbines by adding passive damping systems would reduce turbine fragility by 80%. Jaimes et al Jaimes et al (2020) employ a probabilistic risk assessment to explore the economic impact of tropical cyclones on onshore wind farms in Mexico. A key limitation of these studies is the limited amount of meteorological data that is available for the assessment.…”