Dynamics and Control of Vibrations in Wind Turbines With Variable Rotor

Engineering Structures 56 (2013) 5867
Contents lists available at SciVerse ScienceDirect
Engineering Structures
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/engstruct
Dynamics and control of vibrations in wind turbines with variable rotor

speed
A. Staino, B. Basu
School of Engineering, Trinity College Dublin, Dublin 2, Ireland
a r t i c l e
i n f o
Article history:
Received 30 January 2012
Revised 3 March 2013
Accepted 5 March 2013
Available online 24 May 2013
Keywords:
Wind turbine modeling
Variable rotor speed
Active vibration control
Time varying dynamics
Transient vibrations due to fault
a b s t r a c t
This paper proposes the modeling and control of vibrations in wind turbines due to change in the rotational speed of the blades. Structural and/or electrical faults occurring in a wind turbine may lead to uctuations of the angular velocity of the rotor blades. The impact of these uctuations on the mechanical
vibrations has not been extensively explored yet. A multi-modal mathematical model describing the
dynamics of exible rotor blades and their interaction with the turbine tower is formulated using a
Lagrangian approach. The blade model considers variable mass and stiffness per unit length. It also
includes the effects of gravity and centrifugal stiffening due to the rotation of the blades. Further, the
equations of motion of the wind turbine are derived by taking the variable rotor speed into account. This
leads to a time varying model with time dependent mass, stiffness and damping matrices. Using the proposed model, the focus of the present paper is to investigate the impact of realistic changes in the rotational speed on the edgewise vibration of the blades due to some grid faults. A numerical investigation is
carried out to examine the inuence of rotor speed variations on the mechanical vibrations affecting the
wind turbine structure. An active controller based on active tendons is proposed to mitigate wind
induced edgewise vibrations. A reduced order model is designed for the synthesis of an appropriate control law. Simulations results show that the proposed control scheme is successful in improving the blade
response. Further, under the conditions considered in this study, the numerical investigation reveals that
the controller is robust with respect to rotor speed variations under circumstances when grid fault
occurs.
2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
1. Introduction
Wind energy has assumed a predominant role in the production
of green electricity. According to the European Wind Energy Association (EWEA) report on wind energy and EU climate policy [1], to
date the total installed wind power capacity in the EU stands at
84 gigawatts (GW), with a nominal annual yield of 181 terawatt
hours (TWh) of electricity. Currently wind power is the fastest
growing source of renewable energy [2] and it is expected to give
a signicant contribution in reducing greenhouse gases and
achieving the emissions reduction targets set by the Kyoto Protocol. Further, the rapidly developing improvements in wind turbines efciency have increased their economic competitiveness
compared to conventional power generating technologies.
In the depicted scenario, a key research topic is the development of systems to achieve extended lifetimes and hence greater
economic viability for wind power plants. In particular, great effort
has been devoted by the scientic community to techniques for
ensuring the structural safety of wind turbines and reduce the
Corresponding author. Tel.: +353 18962389.
E-mail addresses: stainoa@tcd.ie (A. Staino), basub@tcd.ie (B. Basu).
0141-0296/$ - see front matter 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.engstruct.2013.03.014
overall maintenance and repair costs. Modern multi-megawatt

wind turbines are highly exible large machines often operating
in harsh environmental conditions. The cyclic loading of the structure due to the rotation of the blades could compromise the safe
operation of the overall power plant if a critical level of damage
is exceeded. Severe uncontrolled vibrations might lead to structural failures because of their damaging impact on the mechanical
components and the fatigue induced in the blades. Researchers
have therefore focused on the design of damping devices and control methods for suppression of undesired structural vibrations in
wind turbine blades.
In the literature, considerable attention has been paid to the
structural control of wind turbines. Different control schemes have
been proposed to reduce wind induced vibrations and to improve
the dynamic response of the structure, including tuned mass
dampers [35], tuned liquid column dampers [68] and vibration
controllers based on active devices [912]. A list of different control systems for wind turbines is presented in [13]. Previous works
from the authors [14,15] consider the use of active tendons and
actuators for vibration mitigation in wind turbines. However the
impact of changes in the rotational speed of the rotor blades on
the mechanical vibrations has not been focused in the literature
59
A. Staino, B. Basu / Engineering Structures 56 (2013) 5867
so far. Previous works have shown that electrical faults in wind

turbines may lead to changes in the torque and the speed [16],
which in turn can affect the structural performances of the power
plant. In [17,18] is found that the occurrence power system disturbances can have a strong impact on tower vibrations.
Appropriate modeling of the relevant dynamics is required for
reliable wind turbines structural control applications. In this paper,
a dynamic model of the edgewise vibrations for a three-bladed
wind turbine is formulated by using a LagrangianEulerian approach. The model includes the effect of centrifugal stiffening
and gravity. It also considers variable rotor speed and the dynamic
interaction of the rotor blades with the turbine tower. The structural model is coupled with an aerodynamic model based on the
corrected Blade Element Momentum (BEM) theory [19]. Realistic
structural and aerodynamic data from the NREL 5-MW Baseline
wind turbine [20] are considered for the tuning of the dynamic
simulation model. The model allows to explicitly express the edgewise vibration of the blades and of the nacelle as a function of the
blade rotor speed.
By using the exible multi-modal wind turbine model developed in this paper, the effect of blade rotor speed variations on
the vibrational response of the wind turbine structure is investigated. The changes in the mechanical speed used in the simulations are associated with the occurrence of realistic faults in the
electrical subsystem of the plant as found in [16,17]. Numerical results show that the inclusion of rotor speed variations can give rise
to large amplitude edgewise oscillations if no vibration control is
operated. For the scenarios considered in this study, an increase
of up to 500% in the blade tip displacement has been observed in
the uncontrolled case. Using a frozen rotor method on a reduced
order model of the wind turbine, a time-invariant system for the
design of an appropriate control law has been derived. A Linear
Quadratic (LQ) controller has been synthesized and applied in order to mitigate the structural response of the system. The results
show that the active controller is able to successfully reduce the
blade response and to prevent the large increase in the edgewise
vibrations in the presence of rotor speed variations.
2. Model formulation
The HAWT model formulated in what follows consists of three
rotating cantilever beams of length L, representing the turbine
blades, with variable bending stiffness EI(x) and variable mass
l(x) along the length (Fig. 1). The blades rotate at X(t) rad s1
about the rotor axis, i.e. the rotational speed may vary as a function
of time. The azimuthal angle Wj(t) of blade j at the time instant t
is given by
2p
Wj t W1 t j 1 ;
3
j 1; 2; 3
where the azimuthal angle for the rst blade is
W1 t
Xsds
Fig. 1. HAWT model.
function computed from the nite-element based eigen-analysis

of the blade structural data. The tower is modeled as a single degree
of freedom system with the mass M0, which represents the modal
mass of the tower and the mass of the nacelle. The generalized
(or modal) stiffness of the tower is represented by k4, while c4 is
the structural damping associated with the tower/nacelle. The wind
turbine edgewise vibration model is therefore described by 3 N + 1
generalized coordinates. Let q(t) be the vector of the generalized
coordinates of the system dened as
6 q t 7
6 12 7
6 . 7
6 . 7
6 . 7
7
6
6 q t 7
6 1N 7
7
6
7
6
qt 6 q21 t 7 2 R3N1
6 . 7
6 . 7
6 . 7
7
6
6 qji t 7
7
6
7
6
6 .. 7
4 . 5
q4 t
The 0 azimuth corresponds to the blade in the vertical upright position. Since edgewise vibrations are known to be of major concern
in wind turbines, the model in this paper focuses on the edgewise
displacements. The variables uj(x, t), j = 1, 2, 3 and u4(t) denote the
edgewise blade and nacelle displacements, respectively. The blade
is modeled as a exible cantilever beam with N modes of vibration
in the edgewise direction, i.e. each blade is represented by N degrees of freedom. For the jth blade, the ith edgewise mode is described by the generalized variable qji(t), j = 1, 2, 3, i = 1, . . . , N.
Each mode of vibration is associated to the corresponding modeshape Ui(x), which is approximated by an appropriate polynomial
q11 t
The total edgewise displacement along the blade is given by
uj x; t
N
X
Ui xqji t
i1
The variable q4(t) = u4(t) represents the motion of the nacelle in the
rotor plane. The inclusion of the degree of freedom q4(t) into the
Lagrangian formulation allows to capture the dynamic interaction
between the blades and the tower. The coupling between the blades
and tower has been found to be a relevant aspect in the formulation
of a realistic model of rotor vibrations in wind turbines [3], as it
60
could lead to a signicant increase in the total displacement response of the blades.
The equations of motion of the wind turbine have been derived
by following a Lagrangian approach:

_
_
d @Lqt; qt
@Lqt; qt

Q ext;i t
dt
@ q_ i t
@qi t
_
_
Lqt; qt
T qt; qt
Vqt
j1
q_ 4 t sinWj t Xt
!2
N
X
Ui xqji t
i1
q_ 4 t cosWj t Xtx
N
X
where
K g0;ik
g
lnndn
Similarly, for the jth blade, the effect of the component of the gravitational force acting along the blade at a distance x from the blade
root is
F g;j x; t
lng cosWj tdn
g cosWj t

EIx U00i xU00k x dx;
x
L Z L
Z
0
K g;ik
L
0

F c x; t U0i xU0k x dx
K w;ik
lndn U0i xU0k x dx
In (12), E is the Youngs modulus of elasticity of the material, I(x) the

second moment of area of the blade about the relevant axis and
/0i x; /00i x respectively denote the rst and the second derivative
of the modeshape with respect to x. The terms Ke,ik, Kg,ik and Kw,ik
in Eq. (12) represent contributions to the elastic stiffness, stiffness
due to gravitational effects and geometric stiffness respectively.
By introducing the quantities
!2
Ui xq_ ji t
The total potential (strain) energy of the system V is obtained by

considering the potential energy of the cantilever blade in bending,
the contribution from centrifugal stiffening [21], the contribution
from the component of the gravity along the blade axis and the potential energy of the nacelle. The centrifugal force on a blade acting
at the point x from the hub is
F c x; t Xt2
X2 tK g0;ik

Z L Z L

lnndn U0i xU0k x dx;
m1i
lndn
The total potential strain energy of the system is modeled as
10
lxUi xdx; m2i
i1
K e;ik
12
1
2
lxv 2b;j x; t dx M0 q_ 24 t
where v 2b;j x; t is the square of the total velocity of blade j in the

edgewise direction (Fig. 2) calculated as
v 2b;j
11
The terms T and V in (6) denote the total kinetic and potential energy of the system, respectively.
The total kinetic energy of the system (i.e. the three blades and
the tower) is given by
L
1
k4 q24 t
2
!
3
N X
N
X
1X
K e;ik K w;ik cosWj t K g;ik qji tqjk t

2 j1 i1 k1
where Qext,i(t) denotes the ith component of Qext(t) which is the vec_
is the Lagrangian of the
tor of generalized loads and Lqt; qt
system dened as
3 Z
1X
m4 3
0
L
lxdx M0 ; m5i
lxU2i xdx;
13
lxxUi xdx;
and applying Eq. (5), the equations of motion for the considered
wind turbine edgewise vibration model with 3N + 1 degrees of freedom can be written as
t Ctqt
_
Mtq
Ktqt Q load t Q w t Q X_ t
14
where Qload(t) is the aerodynamic load on the blades and the nacelle
and Qw(t) corresponds to the gravity loadings. The additional term
Q X_ t on the right hand-side is due to the variation of the rotor
speed over time and is given by
3
m51
7
6
6 m52 7
7
6
6 .. 7
6 . 7
7
6
7
_ t6
Q X_ t X
6 m5N 7 2 R3N1
7
6
6 m51 7
7
6
6 . 7
6 . 7
4 . 5
0
2
Fig. 2. Velocity of the blade in the rotor plane considering the blade/tower dynamic interaction.
15
61
As found in [14], the mass matrix M(t) of the wind turbine model is
dened as
2
6
6
6
Mt 6
6
4
M2
M2
M1w1 t
7
M1w2 t 7
7
2 R3N13N1
M1w3 t 7
0
0
M2
7
5
MT1w t MT1w t MT1w t
m4
1
6
6
_ t6
KX_ t X
6
4
16
with
m21
6
6
6
M2 6
6
4
0
..
.
0
. ..
m22 . ..
.. . .
.
.
0 0
3
3
2
0
m11 cosWj t
.. 7
6 m12 cosWj t 7
7
6
. 7
7
7 2 RN1
2 RNN ; M1wj t 6
..
7
6
.. 7
7
5
4
.
. 5
m1N cosWj t
m2N
17
The damping matrix, including structural damping, is given by
2
6
6
Ct Cstruct 2Xt6
6
4
07
7
7
0
0
0
07
5
MT1w t MT1w t MT1w t 0
0
18
with
2
Cstruct 2 R3N13N1 ;
m11 sinWj t
6 m12 sinWj t 7
7
6
7 2 RN1
M1wj t 6
..
7
6
5
4
.
19
m1N sinWj t
where Cstruct is a diagonal matrix whose diagonal entries cb,ji j = 1, 2,
3, i = 1, . . . , N denote the structural damping associated with the ith
mode of the jth blade. The structural damping associated to the
tower is represented by c4.
If variations of rotor speed are taken into account, the stiffness
matrix K(t) can be written as
Kt Kt KX_ t
20
where
2
6
6
6
Kt 6
6
4
K2 t Kww1 t
K2 t Kww2 t
0
X
tMT1w
0
2
t X tMT1w
7
07
7
2 R3N13N1
K2 t Kww3 t 0 7
7
5
t X2 tMT1w t k4
0
21
with
2
6
6
6
K2 t 6
6
6
4
K e;11 X2 tK g0;11 m21
X2 tK g0;21
..
.
X2 tK g0;N1
2K
w;11 cosWj t
6
6K
6 w;21 cosWj t
KwWj t 6
..
6
4
.
X2 tK g0;12
The stiffness term KX_ t arises from the variation of the rotational
speed of the blades and once again it is due to the coupling between
the rotating blades and the tower:
...
07
7
7 2 R3N13N1
0
0
0
07
5
MT1w t MT1w t MT1w t 0
0
23
According to the formulation derived in this paper therefore, the
blade/tower interaction represents an important aspect in the wind
turbine vibration modeling, as most of the dynamics are found to be
dependent on the coupling between the blades and the turbine
tower.
3. Edgewise model with controllers
The suppression of edgewise vibration in wind turbine blades
represents a challenging structural control problem. In multimegawatt power plant, the size/weight of the components, the
presence of rotating elements subjected to intense cyclic loadings
and the harsh environmental conditions in which the system is
operating make the installation/maintenance of effective control
devices difcult and expensive. Also, the design of a successful control strategy is a nontrivial task due to the low structural/aerodynamic damping in the edgewise whirling modes [22] and the
structure itself of the system, which is time varying in nature.
In this paper, the active vibration controller proposed by the
authors in [14] has been adopted to suppress edgewise vibrations.
The control is based on active elements (actuators or active tendons) located inside the blade. Each blade is individually controlled
by a variable force in the edgewise direction that can be appropriately manipulated according to a prescribed control law. The proposed structural control of the blade based on active tendons is
illustrated in Fig. 3. The active elements are drawn in thin lines
while the support structure (e.g. a truss or a frame) is shown in
bold. The introduction of active elements in the support structure
allows to transfer the control force to the hub without the generation of a reaction force in the edgewise direction of the blade. In
fact, the active elements (active tendons in this case) produce
forces which are external to the support structure and hence nullify the forces in the edgewise direction (e.g. the net edgewise load
at joints A or B is identically zero). Hence, mechanistically this
eliminates any edgewise reaction forces for the support structure
if the algebraic condition DT0(t)sin(h0) = DT1(t)sin(h1) shown in
Fig. 3 is met. The vertical bars in the supporting structure are no
load members because of equilibrium of forces and are only necessary for stability in order to reduce the effective length and avoid
local buckling. Hence only for practical reasons, some support
X2 tK g0;1N
7
..
7
7
K e;22 X2 tK g0;22 m22 . . .
.
7 2 RNN
7
..
..
..
7
.
.
.
5
X2 tK g0;N2
. . . K e;NN X2 tK g0;NN m2N
K w;12 cosWj t . . . K w;1N cosWj t 3
7
...
7
K w;22 cosWj t . . .
7
7 2 RNN
..
..
..
7
5
.
.
.
K w;N1 cosWj t K w;N2 cosWj t . . . K w;NN cosWj t
22
62
Fig. 3. Implementation of active vibration blade control based on active tendons.
would be needed for the truss/frame for stability without the

transfer of any reaction force in the edgewise direction. The forces
T0, T1, . . . are static prestressing forces in the cable (T0 = T1 = = 0
for actuators). The control force determines the value of DT0(t) and
the other active tendon forces (such as DT1(t)) can be calculated
subsequently based on geometry and force equilibrium.
The net control force acting on the blade tip in the edgewise
direction for the jth blade is given by
fj t 2DT 0;j t sinh0
24
In the Lagrangian framework developed in this paper, active control

forces are modeled as external modal loads whose total virtual
work dW done on the blades and nacelle is
dW
3
3
X
X
fj tduj L; t dq4 cosWj t
fj tdq4 cosWj t
j1
j1
3 X
N
X
fj tdqji t
25
Ft
dW
dqt
3
f1 t
6
7
ut 4 f2 t 5 2 R3
f3 t
29
Considering the standard state-space form for linear time-invariant

systems, the dynamic matrix Af 2 R88 of the frozen system is given
by
"
O44
I44

1
M1

K
M
f
f
f Cf
Kf K0jXtX ;
An appropriate control algorithm is required to successfully reduce

the vibrations using the smart blade structure described above.
Since the model including only the fundamental mode of vibration
captures the essential dynamics of the system, the design of the
controller is based on a reduced order model with N = 1. This leads
to a 4DOF system which is used for the design of the controller in
order to decrease the computational cost associated with the calculation of the control law. For the purpose of illustration, a linear
quadratic controller has been adopted for demonstrating the vibration control capabilities of the system. The design is based on a
time-invariant representation of the plant for which the rotor
blades are frozen at the time instant t = 0. The corresponding frozen model is then used for the synthesis of the optimal control
gain. An average model [23] or the multi blade coordinates transformation can also be applied [14]. Further, the nominal rotational
speed X of the blades is assumed for control design. The state vector
x(t) of the reduced order model for control is dened as
30
Cf C0jXtX
31
The corresponding control matrix Bf 2 R83 is:
"
Bf
O43
M1
f U
#
;
3
1 0 0
60 1 07
7
6
U6
7
40 0 15
2
t Ctqt
_
Mtq
Ktqt Q load t Q w t Q X_ t Ft
27
where
Mf M0;
The generalized controlled force on the blade j for the i-th mode,
then, corresponds to the control force fj(t), while the resulting generalized control force on the nacelle is zero. The equations of motion
of the wind turbine model including the proposed active control
system become
28
and the corresponding control input vector u(t) is
Af
26
6 q t 7
6 21 7
7
6
6 q31 t 7
7
6
6 q t 7
7
6 4
xt 6
7 2 R8
6 q_ 11 t 7
7
6
6 q_ t 7
6 21 7
7
6
4 q_ 31 t 5
q_ 4 t
j1 i1
The generalized force vector F(t) is:
q11 t
32
0 0
The computation of the state-feedback gain based on the matrices

Af, Bf is performed by solving the classical LQ control problem as
can be found in [24].
4. Results and discussion
In the numerical simulations carried out for the present study,
structural and aerodynamic data from the NREL offshore 5-MW
baseline wind turbine [20] have been used for model tuning. The
turbine has a total rotor radius L = 63 m and a hub height of
90 m. The blade fundamental edgewise mode corresponds to a
structural frequency of 1.1 Hz. The damping ratio of the blade fundamental mode is assumed to be 0.48%. The tower rst side-to-side
mode is at 0.32 Hz with 1% damping ratio. A turbulent wind loading scenario including vertical wind shear effects and isotropic turbulence with parameters as in [14] has been simulated using the
blade element momentum method with Prandtls tip loss factor
and Glauert correction [19].
63
10
Actuator Power Consumption [kW]
1.8
1
(t) [rad s ]
1.7
1.6
1.5
1.4
1.3
10
20
30
40
50
60
70
80
90
Time [s]
10
Fig. 4. Rotational speed prole 1.
10
20
30
40
50
60
70
80
90
Time [s]
Fig. 7. Instantaneous actuator power consumption associated to the control force in
Fig. 6b.
5
LQ control
uncontrolled
4
3
u1(L,t) [m]
2
1
0
1
2
3
4
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
70
80
90
Time [s]
Fig. 5. Response of blade 1 tip displacement (rotor speed prole 1).
The variation of the blade rotor speed in a wind turbine is

dependent on the difference between the aerodynamic torque
due to the wind and the electrical torque of the generator
[18,2527,17]. In the literature, the dynamics of the rotational
speed X(t) is often approximated as
X_ t
T wind T e
J
33
where Twind is the aerodynamic torque associated with the wind

passing through the rotor swept area, Te is the generator electrical
torque and J models the inertia of the turbine rotor. Therefore, the
mechano-electrical coupling expressed by Eq. (33) implies that
the electrical subsystem affects the mechanical behavior of the
power plant and hence variations occurring on the generator side
may induce changes in the mechanical speed of the rotor blades
(if a mismatch between the aerodynamic and the electrical torques
occurs).
The work by Wei and Chen [16] considers the impact of network communication strategies in wind farms in presence of grid
faults. According to the results presented in [16], a three-phaseto-ground electrical fault can lead to a blade rotor speed prole
similar to the one showed in Fig. 4 if appropriate communication
protocols are not employed. The faults happens at the time instant
t = 50 s. Prior to that, the blade rotor speed is set to the rated value
X 12:1 rpm (1.2671 rad s1).
The occurrence of the electrical fault produces uctuations in
the mechanical speed. By using the wind turbine model developed
in this paper, it is found that the considered rotor speed variation
in turn causes very large amplitude edgewise vibrations for the
turbine blades. In fact, as shown in Fig. 5, the uncontrolled response exhibits a strong increase after t = 50 s, with a maximum
blade tip displacement up to 5 m.
Therefore, in this case the electrical disturbance has a signicant impact on the structural performances of the power plant
and severe oscillations may be experienced by the structure if
appropriate protection systems are not activated/installed. The
proposed vibration controller provides a substantial reduction of
the blade response and successfully suppresses the large vibrations
60
LQ control
uncontrolled
2500
40
Input force [kN]
Fourier Amplitude
3000
2000
1500
1000
500
0
20
0
20
40
60
0.2
0.4
0.6
0.8
1.2
1.4
1.6
1.8
80
10
20
30
40
50
60
70
Frequency [Hz]
Time [s]
(a) Frequency content of blade 1 response
(b) Force applied to blade 1
Fig. 6. Performances of the active controller (rotor speed prole 1).
80
90
64
1.34
1.285
1.28
1
(t) [rad s ]
1
(t) [rad s ]
1.32
1.3
1.28
1.26
1.27
1.265
1.26
1.255
1.25
1.24
1.22
1.275
1.245
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
46
70
48
50
52
54
56
58
Time [s]
Time [s]
1.4
1.2
2.5
LQ control
uncontrolled
0.8
u1(L,t) [m]
u1(L,t) [m]
1.5
1
0.5
0
0.6
0.4
0.2
0
0.5
0.2
0.4
1.5
2
LQ control
uncontrolled
0.6
0.8
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
70
10
20
30
40
50
60
70
Time [s]
Time [s]
originated by the variations in the rotational speed. The tuning of

the LQ controller with appropriate weights is based on the previous study from the authors [14]. Different level of performances
can be achieved by selecting proper control weights. Analysis of
the Fourier spectrum (Fig. 6a) reveals that in the uncontrolled case
most of the energy of the blade response is concentrated around
1.1 Hz, which is the peak corresponding to the blade natural
frequency. The controller is clearly effective in eliminating the frequency components which mainly dominate the response.
The control force applied to the blade is shown in Fig. 6b. Before
time t = 50 s, when the rotor is spinning at a constant speed, the
control force exerted by the active system provides a smoother response by suppressing the frequency components associated with
the blade natural frequency. An increase in the amount of force
required to mitigate the vibrations after the occurrence of the
1800
80
LQ control
uncontrolled
1400
60
Input force [kN]
Fourier Amplitude
1600
1200
1000
800
600
40
20
0
20
400
40
200
60
0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8
1.2 1.4 1.6 1.8
2.2 2.4
80
10
20
30
Frequency [Hz]
40
50
Time [s]
60
70
65
1800
80
LQ control
uncontrolled
1400
60
Input force [kN]
Fourier Amplitude
1600
1200
1000
800
600
400
40
20
0
20
40
60
200
80
100
0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8
1.2 1.4 1.6 1.8
2.2 2.4
10
20
30
40
50
60
Frequency [Hz]
Time [s]
70
1.65
1.6
(t) [rad s1]
1.55
1.5
1.45
1.4
1.35
1.3
1.25
10
20
30
40
50
60
70
80
90
70
80
90
Time [s]
1.6
LQ control
uncontrolled
1.4
1.2
u1(L,t) [m]
1
0.8
0.6
0.4
0.2
0
0.2
0.4
0.6
10
20
30
40
50
60
Time [s]
electrical fault is observed. Although the actuators dynamic is not

considered in the simulations, a simple actuator model, modeled as
a constant gain, has been used in order to estimate the actuator
power consumption required to operate the control force. For the
purpose of illustration, an actuator with a 150 kN force capacity
and 250 mm stroke has been considered. The resulting instantaneous power consumption is shown in Fig. 7.
The implementation of appropriate communication protocols

can avoid the linear increase in the blade rotor speed resulting
from the electrical fault [16]. In this case, after a short transient
the rotational speed settles to the rated value as shown in Fig. 8.
Although the loss of stability is avoided as discussed in [16], the
occurrence of oscillations in X(t) once again has an evident impact
on the uncontrolled structural response of the wind turbine blades
(Fig. 9). By using the proposed structural control method, not only
a smoother deection of the blade 1 is achieved before t = 50 s but
also the large edgewise vibrations subsequent to the electrical fault
are remarkably suppressed.
The benecial effects of the active controller on the dynamic response of the structure are also clearly seen in the frequency domain (Fig. 10a), whereas a reduction of the dominant peaks in
the controlled blade 1 spectrum is achieved. The corresponding
force requirement for the implementation of the control is shown
in Fig. 10b.
To further analyze the relationship between the structural
behavior and the blade rotor speed changes in wind turbines, the
study carried out by Fadaeinedjad et al. [17] on the impact of voltage sag on wind turbine mechanical vibrations has also been considered. In [17] it was shown that the occurrence of an electrical
disturbance can determine a rotor speed prole comparable to
the one in Fig. 11 (also in this case the fault is simulated at the time
instant t = 50 s).
By simulating the dynamics of the wind turbine edgewise vibration model with X(t) as in Fig. 11, the blade tip displacement in
Fig. 12 is observed for the controlled and the uncontrolled case,
respectively. Analogous considerations as for the previous cases
apply, i.e. the variation of the rotational speed induces an increase
in the vibrational response which can be prevented by means of
the proposed active controller (Fig. 13a).
It is worth noting that even though a small change in the magnitude of the rotational speed is occurring, the amount of force required to react against the resulting edgewise vibration is rather
consistent (Fig. 13b). However, very satisfactory performances
are achieved by the controller as the effect of the speed variation
on the blade response is negligible in the controlled case.
Finally, the blade rotor speed variation in Fig. 14 has been used
for numerical simulation. This is done in order to assess the reliability of the proposed wind turbine model and to show the importance of assuming realistic proles for X(t), as for instance the ones
arising from electrical faults, as discussed previously.
In fact, it should be noted that no signicant increment in the
edgewise response is observed (Fig. 15) when the blade rotor speed
is simply linearly increased over a short time period. Even though
the magnitude of the speed change is higher than the cases
66
30
LQ control
uncontrolled
1200
20
Input force [kN]
Fourier Amplitude
1400
1000
800
600
400
0
10
20
30
200
0
10
0.2
0.4
0.6
0.8
1.2
1.4
1.6
1.8
40
10
20
30
Frequency [Hz]
40
50
60
70
80
90
Time [s]
considered before, the large amplitude oscillations are not occurring in the uncontrolled response.
This implies that careful design of simulation scenarios is required for carrying out reliable numerical wind turbine vibration
analysis, as misleading results can be obtained if realistic velocity
proles are not employed.
The simulated vibration control system is capable of mitigating
the structural response and reducing the high amplitude frequency
components in the spectrum (Fig. 16a). The corresponding control
force applied to the blade 1 is shown in Fig. 16b.
5. Conclusions
A multi-modal exible wind turbine model with variable rotor
speed has been formulated using a Lagrangian approach. This has
led to the development of a time varying model with time dependent mass, stiffness and damping matrices. The wind turbine equations of motion show that the rotor acceleration affects the
stiffness of the system through the interaction between the blades
and the tower. The application of the active vibration controller
based on actuators/active tendons proposed in a previous work
by the authors has been examined. Realistic wind turbine structural and aerodynamic properties have been considered. Corrected
blade element momentum theory has been applied to calculate the
aerodynamic load and turbulent wind loading conditions have
been simulated. Different wind turbines rotational speed proles
reported in the literature have been used to represent realistic
blade rotor speed variations associated with faults in the electrical
subsystem of the power plant.
The impact of blade rotor speed variations on the edgewise
vibration in horizontal axis wind turbines has been investigated.
The main purpose of the numerical simulations carried out in this
paper was to illustrate how the changes in the rotational speed affects the mechanical performance of the system. The coupling between rotor speed and rotor vibrations in wind turbines has not
been sufciently addressed in the literature to date. Even though
modern wind turbines are equipped with speed control systems,
these are designed to meet requirements on the power output of
the turbine and do not consider the structural performance as a
control objective.
It has been found that the electrical disturbances may give rise
to strong edgewise vibrations if appropriate control actions are not
applied. This is a relevant nding for the analysis and design of
wind turbines which has not been reported yet. According to the
numerical results presented in this paper, a considerable deterioration of the structural response of the blade could occur caused by
variations in the rotational speed due to an electrical fault. The proposed active controller is highly effective in reducing the violent
edgewise vibrations occurring and greatly improves the dynamic

response of the structure for the cases considered.
Acknowledgments
This research is carried out under the EU FP7 ITN Project SYSWIND (Grant No. PITN-GA-2009-238325). The SYSWIND Project
is funded by the Marie Curie Actions under the Seventh Framework
Programme for Research and Technological Development of the
EU. The authors would also like to thank Dr. M. Basu, Dublin Institute of Technology, for the useful discussions and suggestions.
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Dynamics and Control of Vibrations in Wind Turbines With Variable Rotor

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Engineering Structures 56 (2013) 5867

Contents lists available at SciVerse ScienceDirect

Dynamics and control of vibrations in wind turbines with variable rotor

overall maintenance and repair costs. Modern multi-megawatt

A. Staino, B. Basu / Engineering Structures 56 (2013) 5867

so far. Previous works have shown that electrical faults in wind

where the azimuthal angle for the rst blade is

Fig. 1. HAWT model.

function computed from the nite-element based eigen-analysis

The total edgewise displacement along the blade is given by

A. Staino, B. Basu / Engineering Structures 56 (2013) 5867

lng cosWj tdn

lndn U0i xU0k x dx

In (12), E is the Youngs modulus of elasticity of the material, I(x) the

The total potential (strain) energy of the system V is obtained by

lnndn U0i xU0k x dx;

The total potential strain energy of the system is modeled as

lxUi xdx; m2i

where v 2b;j x; t is the square of the total velocity of blade j in the

K e;ik K w;ik cosWj t K g;ik qji tqjk t

A. Staino, B. Basu / Engineering Structures 56 (2013) 5867

The damping matrix, including structural damping, is given by

K e;11 X2 tK g0;11 m21

K w;N1 cosWj t K w;N2 cosWj t . . . K w;NN cosWj t

A. Staino, B. Basu / Engineering Structures 56 (2013) 5867

Fig. 3. Implementation of active vibration blade control based on active tendons.

would be needed for the truss/frame for stability without the

fj t 2DT 0;j t sinh0

In the Lagrangian framework developed in this paper, active control

Considering the standard state-space form for linear time-invariant

An appropriate control algorithm is required to successfully reduce

The corresponding control matrix Bf 2 R83 is:

and the corresponding control input vector u(t) is

The generalized force vector F(t) is:

The computation of the state-feedback gain based on the matrices

A. Staino, B. Basu / Engineering Structures 56 (2013) 5867

Actuator Power Consumption [kW]

Fig. 4. Rotational speed prole 1.

The variation of the blade rotor speed in a wind turbine is

where Twind is the aerodynamic torque associated with the wind

Input force [kN]

(a) Frequency content of blade 1 response

(b) Force applied to blade 1

Fig. 6. Performances of the active controller (rotor speed prole 1).

A. Staino, B. Basu / Engineering Structures 56 (2013) 5867

Fig. 11. Rotational speed prole 3.

Fig. 8. Rotational speed prole 2.

originated by the variations in the rotational speed. The tuning of

Input force [kN]

0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8

1.2 1.4 1.6 1.8

(a) Frequency content of blade 1 response

(b) Force applied to blade 1

A. Staino, B. Basu / Engineering Structures 56 (2013) 5867

Input force [kN]

0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8

1.2 1.4 1.6 1.8

(a) Frequency content of blade 1 response

(b) Force applied to blade 1

(t) [rad s1]

electrical fault is observed. Although the actuators dynamic is not

The implementation of appropriate communication protocols

A. Staino, B. Basu / Engineering Structures 56 (2013) 5867

Input force [kN]