Smart control of fatigue loads on a floating wind turbine with a tension-leg-platform

摘要

In this paper, the smart fatigue load control of a representative floating wind turbine (FWT) with a tension-leg-platform was numerically investigated using our newly integrated aero-hydro-servo-elastic code. The control was achieved by introducing a local, fast and efficient closed-loop system based on deformable trailing edge flap (DTEF) activation near the tip of each blade, and as a result, it was able to effectively suppress the unstable loads on the critical components, as well as improve the general performances of FWT. The control effectiveness lies in the great impairment of original synchronized wind-rotor relationship by controllable DTEFs. This significantly decreased the combined effects of wind, waves and primary modes of blade, driving-chain components, tower and TLP platform, and subsequently attenuated the main fatigue loads on them. The effect of the control mechanism became more drastic as the investigation focused on the case beyond the rated wind velocity. In addition, the research findings showed the crucial role that the wind-wave-rotor relationship played during the development of smart rotor controller. (C) 2018 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.