Hysteretic damping model for laterally loaded piles

Fatigue assessment is a critical design aspect for many offshore structures. Soil-foundation interaction has a direct impact on the system dynamic response of these structures. While the stiffness of the soil-foundation interaction influences the system's natural frequency, the damping influences the amplification of the structural response to environmental excitations. This paper presents a simplified model for estimating the soil damping due to nonlinear soil response for pile foundations, which have wide applications in the offshore industry, such as for supporting jacket platforms, wind turbines and wellhead facilities. The proposed model is fundamentally linked to the damping response of the soil measured at element level therefore it offers design engineers an efficient and accurate way to estimate soil-pile interaction damping based on site-specific soil data. Approaches to include the suggested model for structural analysis are also proposed.     

Integrated design optimization of spar floating wind turbines

A linearized aero-hydro-servo-elastic floating wind turbine model is presented and used to perform integrated design optimization of the platform, tower, mooring system, and blade-pitch controller for a 10 MW spar floating wind turbine. Optimal design solutions are found using gradient-based optimization with analytic derivatives, considering both fatigue and extreme response constraints, where the objective function is a weighted combination of system cost and power quality. Optimization results show that local minima exist both in the soft-stiff and stiff-stiff range for the first tower bending mode and that a stiff-stiff tower design is needed to reach a solution that satisfies the fatigue constraints. The optimized platform has a relatively small diameter in the wave zone to limit the wave loads on the structure and an hourglass shape far below the waterline. The shape increases the restoring moment and natural frequency in pitch, which leads to improved behaviour in the low-frequency range. The importance of integrated optimization is shown in the solutions for the tower and blade-pitch control system, which are clearly affected by the simultaneous design of the platform. State-of-the-art nonlinear time-domain analyses show that the linearized model is conservative in general, but reasonably accurate in capturing trends, suggesting that the presented methodology is suitable for preliminary integrated design calculations.     

Experimental field study of floater motion effects on a main bearing in a full-scale spar floating wind turbine

In this paper we present a full-scale experimental field study of the effects of floater motion on a main bearing in a 6 MW turbine on a spar-type floating substructure. Floating wind turbines are necessary to access the full offshore wind power potential, but the characteristics of their operation leave a gap with respect to the rapidly developing empirical knowledge on operation of bottom-fixed turbines. Larger wind turbines are one of the most important contributions to reducing cost of energy, but challenge established drivetrain layouts, component size envelopes and analysis methods. We have used fibre optic strain sensor arrays to measure circumferential strain in the stationary ring in a main bearing. Strain data have been analysed in the time domain and the frequency domain and compared with data on environmental loads, floating turbine motion and turbine operation. The results show that the contribution to fluctuating strain from in-plane bending strain is two orders of magnitude larger than that from membrane strain. The fluctuating in-plane bending strain is the result of cyclic differences between blade bending moments, both in and out of the rotor plane, and is driven by wind loads and turbine rotation. The fluctuating membrane strain appears to be the result of both axial load from thrust, because of the bearing and roller geometry, and radial loads on the rotating bearing ring from total out-of-plane bending moments in the three blades. The membrane strain shows a contribution from slow-varying wind forces and floating turbine pitch motion. However, as the total fluctuating strain is dominated by the intrinsic effects of blade bending moments in these turbines, the relative effect of floater motion is very small. Mostly relevant for the intrinsic membrane strain, sum and difference frequencies appear in the measured responses as the result of nonlinear system behaviour. This is an important result with respect to turbine modelling and simulation, where global structural analyses and local drivetrain analyses are frequently decoupled.     

Experimental study on seismic vibration control of an offshore wind turbine with TMD considering soil liquefaction effect

Wind energy is clean and sustainable. Taiwan is establishing offshore wind farms using wind turbines in the Taiwan Strait. However, these are located in an earthquake-prone area with sandy seabed conditions. To ensure their safety and reliability, the turbines’ support structure must be protected against wind, waves, and seismic loads. Tuned mass dampers (TMDs) are commonly employed to reduce structural vibrations. A TMD is more simply incorporated into turbine structures than are other energy dissipation devices. In this study, a 1:25-scale test model with a TMD was constructed and subjected to shaking table tests to experimentally simulate the dynamic behavior of a typical 5-MW wind turbine with a jacket-type support structure and pile foundation. The scaled-down wind turbine model has a nacelle without rotating blades; therefore, the aerodynamic and rotational effects due to the rotating blades were ignored in this study. A large laminar shear box filled with saturated sandy ground was used to simulate the typical seabed conditions of Taiwanese offshore wind farms. The TMD system was designed to be tuned the first-mode frequency of the test model. Two ground accelerations, selected by considering wind farm site condition and near-fault characteristics, were used for excitation in the test. The responses of the test model with and without the TMD system were compared, and the influence of soil liquefaction on the effectiveness of TMD vibration control was addressed.     

非线性混合海况下近海风机塔筒底部载荷的动力响应

本文主要研究在非线性混合海况(即风浪和涌浪组合海况)下,以NREL 5MW_Baseline Monopile近海风机为研究对象,对其塔筒底部(基线)所受到的剪力和弯矩载荷的动力响应进行仿真。在近海风机的时域仿真中,选用了Ochi-Hubble六参数波浪谱,并编制了该谱的程序嵌入到FAST中进行编译。计算过程中,共进行了20次10 min的仿真分析。对于得到的短期载荷,给出了波高程,塔筒底部首尾向剪力和弯矩在线性与非线性不规则波作用下的时程曲线对比图。采用分块最大值法对每一次的短期载荷提取极值,并基于20次仿真所得的极值,给出了塔筒底部首尾向剪力与弯矩在线性与非线性不规则波作用下的超越概率曲线对比图。研究表明,在非线性混合海况下进行近海风机塔筒底部载荷的动力响应研究,计算结果对工程实际应用具有指导意义。     

Study of steady and unsteady wet steam condensing flows in a turbine stage

Objective To develop the numerical method for the steady and unsteady wet steam condensing flow in turbine stage. Methods An Eulerian/Eulerian numerical model is used to describe the spontaneous condensation flow in the steam turbine. For the steady condensing flow computations, the mixing plane model was used. For the unsteady condensing flow computations, the sliding mesh method was used to simulate the rotor-stator interactions. Results The numerical results showed the obvious differences between non-condensing and condensing flows. The results also showed the unsteadiness effect due to rotor-stator interactions had a deep influence on the formation and growth process of water droplets. Conclusion The numerical methods presented in this paper are valid for the condensing flow in the turbine stage.     

江阴大桥强风报警及风场特性分析

风荷载对悬索桥的运营期安全有重要影响.文章利用健康监测系统实测数据,建立了江阴长江公路大桥风特性数据库.在此基础上,一方面针对风速设定报警阈值,从而保证了行车与结构安全,另一方面计算得到紊流强度、阵风系数等风特性,对桥梁设计风荷载参数取值的合理性进行了验证.研究结论为江阴大桥的抗风安全性评价提供了实测依据,同时可为该地区其他工程结构的抗风研究提供参考.     

填砂路基击实标准的探讨

通过大量的试验对比分析,论证了采用相对密度法取得的最大干密度作为填砂路基密实度检测标准的可行性和合理性,为填砂路基压实度检测提供了依据。     

基于行车模拟牵引计算的地铁区间风井设置

什么条件下地铁地下区间中部需设置区间风井,在相关设计规范及设计标准中均没有明确规定,争议较多。提供一种基于行车模拟牵引计算、在一定研究前提条件下确定较长地下区间是否设置中间风井的理论研究方法,提出是否设置区间风井的判定标准及具体的研究实操步骤,并通过实例结果分析,明确设置区间风井的最小站间距临界值,为相关领域内的研究者、决策者及地铁建设、运营单位提供参考。     

双馈风电变流器半实物仿真平台的开发

文章介绍了双馈风电变流器半实物仿真平台的实现原理、方案,给出了该平台连接实际风电变流控制器运行时的仿真结果,并针对低电压穿越工况与现场试验结果进行了对比。该平台使用灵活方便,能大大缩短控制器产品开发周期,降低试验成本。