Wind Turbine Tower Damper With Passage Opening for Vibration Control
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Solution Overview
Problem
Wind turbine towers face challenges in damping vortex-induced vibrations and maintaining a passageway for service personnel, as existing solutions either alter the structure's shape or vibrational properties, and space restrictions within the tower complicate the placement of vibration dampers.
Innovation Solution
A compact and robust tower vibration damper is mounted inside the wind turbine tower, featuring a cylindrically shaped pendulum structure suspended by springs and immersed in a damping liquid, with a through-going opening allowing safe passage for service personnel, and adjustable natural frequency through wire length tuning.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If a vibration damper is added to the wind turbine tower to dampen vortex-induced vibrations, then the vibration damping performance is improved, but the space available for service personnel passage is reduced
Solution Approach 1:
The vibration damper is segmented into multiple functional components: a pendulum structure for mass, springs for elasticity, and a damping liquid chamber for energy dissipation. This segmentation allows each component to be optimized independently while maintaining overall compactness, enabling the damper to fit within the tower's limited space while preserving passageways for service personnel.
Solution Approach 2:
The vibration damper employs a nested structure where the pendulum body is positioned within a chamber that contains the damping liquid, and the springs are arranged between the pendulum and the chamber wall. This nested arrangement maximizes space utilization within the constrained tower interior, allowing the complete damping system to coexist with the service personnel passage without occupying excessive horizontal space.
2Productivity
If the tower height is increased to accommodate taller wind turbines, then the power generation capacity is improved, but the vortex-induced vibrations become more severe
Solution Approach 1:
The vibration damper utilizes mechanical vibration principles through its pendulum structure, which is designed to oscillate at the same frequency as the tower's natural frequency. The pendulum's rhythmic motion, combined with the damping liquid's resistance, creates a counter-vibration effect that cancels out the harmful vortex-induced vibrations, allowing taller towers to operate smoothly without excessive oscillation.
Solution Approach 2:
The damper system allows for parameter adjustment through the selection of different pendulum masses, spring stiffness values, and damping liquid viscosities. By tuning these parameters, the damper can be optimized for specific tower heights and vibration characteristics, enabling the system to effectively counteract vortex-induced vibrations across a range of tower configurations and power generation requirements.
3Reliability
If a complex vibration damping system is installed inside the tower, then the damping effectiveness is improved, but the device complexity and space requirements increase
Solution Approach 1:
The vibration damper merges multiple damping mechanisms into a single integrated system: the pendulum provides inertial mass, the springs provide elastic restoring force, and the damping liquid provides viscous dissipation. This combination of mass-spring-damper elements in one compact unit achieves effective vibration damping without requiring multiple separate devices, thereby reducing overall structural complexity and space requirements within the tower.
Applied Scientific Principles
This section explains which scientific principles are used to turn an abstract innovation direction into a practical engineering solution.
Function Achieved in This Case
The solution effectively damps vortex-induced vibrations while enabling easy and safe access for maintenance, with a design that can be tailored to specific damping demands and reused across different towers.
Implementation Method 1
a pendulum structure being suspended in the wind turbine tower, said pendulum structure comprising a cylindrically shaped pendulum body
Implementation Method 2
The pendulum structure may be made of metal and its weight may be in the range 3 to 10 tons depending on the specific requirement
Implementation Method 3
a plurality of springs arranged to dampen movements of the pendulum structure when suspended in the wind turbine tower
Implementation Method 4
a chamber holding a damping liquid into which damping liquid the pendulum structure is at least partly immersed
Data Source
Figure 1
Figure 2
Figure 3a~3b
AI summary
The present invention relates to a tower damper adapted to be mounted in a wind turbine tower, the tower damper comprising a pendulum structure adapted to be suspended in the wind turbine tower; a plurality of springs arranged to dampen movements of the pendulum structure; a suspension arrangement for suspending the pendulum structure; and a chamber holding a damping liquid into which damping liquid the pendulum structure is at least partly immersed. The present invention further relates to a wind turbine comprising a tower damper.