Tuned Mass Damper Effect on Structural Vibration Control in Floating Offshore Wind Turbines

A significant development in wind turbine technologies has led to installation of floating offshore wind turbines in deep ocean bed. But these large rotating structures are dynamically sensitive and are exposed to the harsh environmental loading from wind and ocean waves. The floating platform is highly affected by platform translation movements provoking instability to the wind turbine tower affecting the power production. Hence, to ensure their safety and smooth operation, a focus is placed to minimise the excessive vibrations in the wind turbine tower with the help of passive tuned mass damper. Numerical simulations are carried out for NREL 5 MW OC3 spar benchmark wind turbine under the effect of wind-wave mis-alignment from the real Irish met-ocean conditions. OpenFAST platform is used for the numerical simulation. The results show that the inclusion of the passive tuned mass damper (TMD) in strategic locations of the wind turbine tower significantly reduces the tower displacements and tower bending moments.