Investigating Effectiveness of Tuned Mass Damper (TMD) on Control Vibration of Wind Turbine-Soil Interaction

Soil-structure interaction (SSI) effects were investigated on structural responses of wind turbine. Force versus deformation (i.e., p-y curves) was simulated by multilinear elastic springs. The whole system, including the structure, control vibration system and soil nonlinear effects are simulated within a single three-dimensional finite element model. Modeling accuracy was verified using available results related to a 65 kW wind turbine discussed in the literature. Pushover analysis results indicated a fixed-base assumption ends up with overestimation of stiffness compared to the case where SSI effects are considered. Moreover, it is observed that the performance of tuned mass damper (TMD) is highly dependent on its tuned frequency domain, and its efficiency decreases significantly after SSI effects are considered. Lateral deformations of a wind turbine are much higher compared to the fixed-base condition. Therefore, SSI effects play a crucial part in designing wind turbines and should not be neglected in practice.