Wind Turbine Tower Load Reduction using

Passive and Semi-Active Dampers

Arturo Rodriguez Tsouroukdissian
Alstom Wind
arturo.rodriguez-tsouroukdissian
@power.alstom.com

Carlo E. Carcangiu
Alstom Wind

Tim Fischer
SWE
tim.fischer@ifb.uni-stuttgart.de

Isaac Pineda Amo

Alstom Wind

Bernd Kuhnle
SWE

Abstract
The integration of structural damping
devices appears as a suitable answer to the
increase in size of modern wind turbines
and the subsequent rise of loadings. One
promising option to mitigate the multi-MW
wind turbine loads is given by integrating
viscous fluid dampers into the wind turbine
tower.
Neglecting active dampers due to their
complexity and cost, passive and semiactive damper types were selected to be
integrated into the wind turbine aero-servoelastic model of the Alstom ECO100 3MW
wind turbine provided with two tower
configurations (steel and hybrid steelconcrete). A specific release of the code
GL-Bladed [1], tailored for the scope, was
used for the simulations. ANSYS was used
to validate the structural system integrated
in the tower and the dynamic response, in
order to prove the concept.
A sensitivity study has been done for
determining the best positioning and
kinematical configuration of the damper
system. As a result, load reduction in
significant design cases of 20% was
demonstrated and the tower mass can be
reduced consequently by up to 10%. This
technology appears to be a promising
solution for offshore wind applications, and
preliminary studies are currently in
progress.
Keywords: Extreme and fatigue loads,
Wind turbine structural control, Passive and
semi-active dampers.

1 Introduction
Being wind a random excitation, wind
turbines experience complex dynamic load
conditions. This is becoming a growing

Manel Martin
Alstom Wind

Matti Scheu
SWE

challenge for designing larger, tall wind

turbine towers and substructures in both
onshore and offshore wind farms. In order
to keep the structural integrity of multimegawatt wind turbines, different structural
damping strategies have been implemented
in the past years like tuned mass dampers
[2]. Other techniques rely on the available
control actions, as generator speed/torque
control [4] to reduce the side-to-side
excitation, and blade pitch control to limit
for-aft movements [5].
All those strategies aim at limiting fatigue
and buckling loads as well as the dynamic
interaction with the rotor harmonics without
a parallel increase of material (i.e. of costs).
One promising option to mitigate the multiMW wind turbine loads is given by
integrating viscous fluid dampers into the
wind turbine tower. Such devices are
stemmed from civil engineering, where they
have been commonly using for decades [2],
and they can be classified into passive,
active and semi-active, depending on the
need for external power supply, materials,
and specific control action. A new method
is presented in this paper, whose main idea
relies in increasing the damping ratio of the
whole structure by adding viscous fluid
damping devices integrated in the wind
turbine tower in a toggle like arrangement
[3]. Even though, such damping devices
have been so far used in civil buildings and
bridges, it is the first time to the authors
knowledge, that they are implemented and
tested on a real wind turbine model.
A new method is presented, whose main
idea relies in increasing the damping ratio
of the whole structure by adding damping
devices in a toggle brace assembly. A
trade-off between reducing amplitude of
oscillation and reducing acceleration has
been achieved, while damping undesirable
resonance peaks. The sensibility study was

carried out on an ECO100 3MW Alstom

wind turbine (Dr = 100 m, Ht = 90 m) using
several damping configurations: (i) without
damping systems, (ii) passive, (iii) active
dampers, and (iv) semi-active (i.e. acting as
passive in case of failure and grid loss). As
the tower is tubular, the dampers are
arranged in a 120 manner, 3 levels, and 3
per tower sections, summing 9 in total. Two
tower configurations (steel and hybrid steelconcrete) where analyzed.
The paper is structured as follows. In
Section 2, the approach of the method is
described, by giving details on the selected
damper types, their positioning, on the
kinematics of the toggle bracing system and
the implementation into the wind turbine
tower. Furthermore, details on the control
algorithm and the adopted strategy are
given together with the wind turbine
modelling including two different tower
types. In Section 3 the results are shown for
a sensitivity study as well as for detailed
design
fatigue
and
extreme
load
simulations using the final system
configuration. Conclusions and a future
outlook are drawn in Section 4.

2 Methods
In this section the main issues considered
in the design phase of the damping system
are presented. A sensitivity study for each
concept has been
performed and
conclusions are presented later on in the
results section.

2.1

Dampers Type

The first issue is the selection of the most

suitable damper types, among active, semiactive and passive. Moreover, for the scope
of this work, the dampers are all of the
viscous fluid type. Neglecting active
dampers due to their complexity and cost,
passive and semi-active damper types were
selected to be integrated into the wind
turbine. Passive devices, moreover, do not
require an energy demand, which is an
advantage for a wind turbine failure with
resulting interruption of the energy
production or in case of a grid loss,
compared with active devices. The semiactive solution keeps the advantage of the
passive one, but it is able to provide an

extra action on demand, for instance in

case of sudden wind gusts and consequent
large tower oscillations. A suitable trigger
signal has to be found for the switch on/off.
In this work the filtered derivative of the
rotor speed was used. A further issue
regarding the dampers selection is the
maximum damper force (i.e. the damper
coefficient), which is constrained by the real
dampers capabilities and of course by their
cost, which increases with performance. On
the other hand, it is trivial that the higher the
damper force the larger the load reduction.

2.2

Technical description

The dampers are connected from the top

part of a lower tower section to the bottom
part of the subsequent tower section as
seen in Figure 1. This geometrical
configuration magnifies the damping force
by a factor of 2.5 to 3.5. The dampers can
be passive viscous fluid dampers, semiactive magnetorheological (MR) dampers,
or active hydraulic viscous fluid dampers.
st
The dampers not only damp 1 fore-aft and
st
1 side-to-side tower modes, but as being
semi-active, and/or active devices, the
damping ratio can be tuned for a broader
range of frequencies conforming multiple
nd
rd
tower modes like the 2 or 3 tower modes
or the torsional tower modes. The tower
dampers were simulated using GH Bladed
[1], with a specific add-on for this scope.
The local tower acceleration signals are
used to feed the new control loop, as
depicted in Figure 3, providing a damper
force demand as an output. Depending on
the configuration, a magnification of the
damper force in plane and therefore of the
dissipated energy can be achieved. It has
to be kept in mind, that the magnification
factor is only valid for a stiff system.
Bending levels cause in reality a decreased
magnification
factor
[14].
First,
mathematical basics are shown roughly,
which shall help to get the idea of the sense
from certain damper configurations. In
summary, there are two main ideas for
toggle brace systems:

The amount of magnification of the

damping force depends on the
geometry
The device displacements can be
greater than the structural drift

Device displacement:

uD = f u
uD
u
f

Eq. 1

Device displacement
Structural drift
Magnification factor

Transfused damping force:

F = f FD
F
FD
f

Eq. 2

Force on the structure

Force along damper axis

Several configurations for bracing systems

have been studied (Diagonal Brace,
Chevron Brace, Scissor-Jack, LowerToggle
Brace,
Upper-Toggle
brace,
Reverse-Toggle Brace) [11][12][8][13]. All
of
them
use
different
geometrical
alignments to reach high magnification
factors. Typical values for magnification
factors are between 2.5 and 3.5 for the
configurations
presented
in
this
assignment. Theoretically, magnification
factors can reach values up to infinity [3].
These are not taken into account, as they
do not fit to geometrical restrictions like
tower diameter, maximal installation height,
minimum installation angles, etc.
Damping ratio:

Magnification factor

Tk C j rj f j

Damping force:

D =

FD = C o u& (t ) sgn (u& (t ))

FD
Co
u& (t )
sgn (u& (t ))

Eq. 3

Relative velocity between the

ends of the damper along its
axis
Signum function of the
velocity
Damper Exponent, values
between 0.3 and 1.0

Providing a velocity limit. For
velocities above the limit,
damping force is constant

The magnification factor has an important

influence
on
the
damper
force
(consequently
damping
ratio).
The
magnification factor is realized by a certain
alignment of so-called damper braces.

Eq. 4

4 m

2
i i

i
th

Period of vibration of k
the structure

Cj

Damping coefficient of the damper

j

rj

Reactive modal displacement of

th
the damper j of the k vibration
mode

fj
mi

Magnification factor of damper j

Modal displacement on top of the

damping system or at level i

Force along damper axis

Damping coefficient

mode of

Reactive weight on top of the

damping system or at level i

All magnification factors mentioned in the

following consider a fixed installation height
(the installation height constitutes the
distance between the upper and the lower

Damper

Figure 1. Upper toggle brace sketch and tower implementation [11]

connection of the damper assembly). The

optimal location can be seen in Figure 2.
The upper toggle bracing (Figure 1),
originally developed by [3] for buildings and
adjusted for wind turbines in [11], follows
the same constraints as for the lower toggle
bracing. Up to now, the upper-toggle
bracing provides the highest possible
magnification factor. Values can get up to
3.191 [6]. As it can be seen in Figure 2, the
magnification factor depends on the bracelength, the installation height H and the
three angles.

f =

sin 2
+ cos( 2 )
cos(1 + 2 )

Eq. 5

It has to be kept in mind, that all the

regulation approaches are based on
acceleration. A stable mathematical model
is necessary for a good modelling of the
system behaviour. Also, an integrated
signal out of the acceleration without initial
velocity can cause an offset and even leads
to a velocity run-away signal.

2.3

Optimal damper
location (tower
base)

relative displacements of the

structures
minimize displacements between
the flanges
minimize absolute accelerations
minimize the structural response in
the fundamental mode by weighting
the
measured
absolute
accelerations

Controller

Upcoming
multiple-input-multiple-output
(MIMO) control loops use several inputs as
there are accelerations of nacelle, blades or
tower, combining all the measured signals
to command. These advanced controls are
not only designed to optimize the power
production but also to mitigate loads on the
blades and tower [6]. For the here
presented work, a simple additional
feedback loop has been added to the wind
turbine controller (see Figure ), which takes
the local tower acceleration as an input, for
each damper (which is likely an
accelerometer). A rectangular forward
integration is performed hence to get the
corresponding velocity. Numerical offsets
are eliminated by proper filtering. Finally,
the damper reaction force or damping force
is calculated with the following equation,
valid for viscous fluid dampers:

F = C 0 u& sign(u& )
Figure 2. Geometrical integration of
damping stations in the tower
The tower of the wind turbine with its
slender
structure
and
structural
components in the nacelle is very
vulnerable to accelerations. Another
important value is the deflection which
causes high forces and moments in the
tower base and therefore high stresses.
Thus many different contributions affect the
loads on a wind turbine and many different
strategies in semi-active control and
regulation can be applied as follows:

(3)

Where C is the damper coefficient, a

constant (if passive) gain and u is the local
measured velocity of the structure. A linear
behaviour between force and velocity is
assumed, which leads to =1. It should be
noted that in case of passive dampers, the
additional control loos is fictitious, being the
damping force automatically given by the
single dampers as reaction to the local
relative displacement. Conversely, when
semi-active, an extra action could be
triggered by proper controller signal, and
such controller has to be implemented also
in the real plant.

2.4

Wind Turbine Modelling

The Alstom Eco 100 3MW wind turbine is

considered in this work. Two tower
configurations, i.e. a 90 meter hybrid
(concrete and steel) or 100m steel tower,
are investigated. The wind turbine is
modelled with the servo-aero-elastic code
GL-Bladed [1], with a multi-member
definition of the tower and a specific add-on
for the dampers modelling. With such addon, localized dampers can be integrated
into the tower, with a specified position in
height and direction. The local acceleration
is given by the same damper and it is
available as a direct output. On the other
hand, the damper provides also a force
input to the system, and resulting from the
control calculation. Moreover, in order to
guarantee the structural integrity ANSYS
was used to validate the structural system
integrated in the tower and dynamic
response, in order to prove the concept.

3 Results
In this Section the achieved results are
presented. This includes a sensitivity study
using the described damper devices for
both tower configurations and a final
performance check for design loads.

3.1

Sensitivity Study

Several issues have been clarified by

means of an accurate sensitivity study,
regarding the dimensioning and integration

SetSpeed

SpeedError

Torque
Controller

TorqueDemand

Pitch
Controller

PitchDemand

of dampers into a wind turbine. Generally,

it has been found that the higher the
dampers resultant force is the higher
reductions are to be expected (Figure 1).
The upper limit was hence set based on the
local maximum of the ratio between the
required force and the corresponding load
reduction. The advantage of using three
dampers in a 120 out-of-phase system
was proven with respect to two orthogonal
dampers, being also less sensible to wind
direction changes (Figure 2.a). In addition,
the required resultant force resultant is
more uniformly distributed among the
dampers, which can be thus smaller (Figure
2.b).
Another design feature addressed was the
installation height. The optimum installation
height accounted for those limitations
results in positioning the dampers at tower
base, where the highest strain deformations
occur. Being the semi-active dampers
attractive for the highest controllability and
their potential for extreme events, such as
wind gusts, a dedicated study was carried
out. In Error! Reference source not
found., the fore-aft tower base moment
computed for a DLC-1.6 [7] is shown as
one application example for both semiactive and passive damping. A clear
reduction in the maximum is achieved when
the semi-active is triggered; the generator
speed derivative is enabled. It should be
noted how the oscillations after an extreme
event are suppressed by both systems, and
the total damping ratio increased.
Nevertheless, the effectiveness of the semi-

Converter+
Generator

GeneratorTorque

Pitch Motor

PitchAngle

Tower XY-Acceleration Sensors

Damping
Controller
MeasuredSpeed

DamperForceDemand

Dampers

Electrical Power

GeneratorSpeed

TowerAccXY

DamperForce

Speed Sensor

Figure 3. Wind turbine control System with tower damping loop

active system is highly dependent on the

used trigger and on turbulent conditions, so
that the passive system was thought to be
preferable. Further load details can be
found in [8].

potential is clearly appreciable when

adopting the steel configuration, as shown
in Table 2 for the extreme and fatigue
loads. Such results are stemmed from a set
of combined DLCs batch calculation for
fatigue according to IEC [7] for DLC1.2 and
DLC6.4 and extreme loads
including
mainly extreme wind conditions (DLC1.3),
idling (DLC6.4) and failures (DLC2.1) on
the final damping configuration (as reported
in Table 1), for both the tower models.

4 Conclusions
Promising indications have been obtained
regarding the effectiveness of viscous
damper systems integrated into the tower of
a wind turbine for structural load mitigation.
The main tower base bending moments can
be reduced up to 20% in the extreme cases
and around 10% in fatigue. Several aspects
were considered and clarified regarding the
design and implementation of such devices,
including practical implementation issues
such as:

Figure 4 Tower base Moment &

Damper Force

3.2

Final Configuration
Performance

The set of the final damping system

configuration after the sensitivity study is
summarized in Table 1.
Dampers type
System type
Installation Height
No of Damping
System
Damping System

Viscous-fluid
Passive
Tower base
1, upper-toggle
3 dampers, 120
phased

Damper
2.33
Coefficient
Table 1. Final system configuration
For such configuration, the loads reduction
obtained for both the hybrid and the steel
tower are finally presented. The higher

Maximum damper force

Number of dampers in-plane (i.e. per
damping system)
Installation height and number of
damping systems
Passive vs. Semi-active system
Economics

In particular, a comprehensive economical

analysis has finally been performed. The
cost for the damping system has been
estimated including manufacturing and
transportation costs. Even though special
dampers are required for the application,
which are able to bear the high number of
cycles imposed by the wind turbine
operation, a valuable decrease in tower
material still prevailed over the benefits.
Furthermore, no overloading of other
system quantities is found, as it is the case
when active systems are used, such as
generator-torque
or
tower-feedback
controller. As future work, the effects of
applying these devices on offshore wind
turbines will be investigated. Preliminary
results show promising load reduction along
the support structure. Here due to the
presence of waves and especially for cases
of non-availability, the implementation of
semi-active damper systems will be very
effective. As waves are always acting,

EXTREME

Mx

My

Mxy

Mz

Hybrid tower

-15%

-7%

-13%

0%

Steel tower

-20%

-12%

-21%

-1%

FATIGUE (SN = 5)

Mx

My

Hybrid tower

-6.4%

-10.5%

Steel tower

-7.6%

-13.0%

Table 2. Extreme and Fatigue Load reductions

a.
b.
Figure 1. Damper gain sensitivity study: tower base fore-aft moment (a) and damper requested
reaction force (b)

a.
b.
Figure 2. Dampers orientation sensitivity study: tower base fore-aft moment (a) and damper
reaction force (b)
especially when the wind turbine is nonavailable, these devices will damp the
extreme
and
normal
sea
state
hydrodynamic loads without comprising the
structural integrity of the whole wind
turbine. The system is expected to be an
excellent solution for tall wind turbine
towers and substructures in both onshore
and offshore (near-shore & floating) wind
farms and will enable large optimization
potentials and/or installations of economical

support structures, such as Monopiles, in

deeper waters.

5 References
[1] Bossanyi, E. A. GH Bladed Users
manual, 2010.
[2] Chu, S. Y., Soong, T.T., Reinhorn, A.
M.: Active, Hybrid and Semi-Active
Structural Control; New York / Buffalo,
2005

[3] Constantinou, M. C., Tsopelas, P.,

Hammel, W., and Sigaher, A. N (2001).
Toggle-brace-damper seismic energy
dissipation
systems.
Journal
of
Structural Engineering. 127(2): 105
112.
[4] Fischer, T., Rainey, P., Bossanyi, E.
and Khn, M.: Control Strategies for an
Offshore Wind Turbine on a Monopile
under Misaligned Wind and Wave
Loading, Science of Making Torque
from Wind Conference, Heraklion,
2010.
[5] Fischer, T., Rainey, P., Bossanyi, E.
and Khn M.: Optimization of a
Monopile Support Structure using
Offshore-Specific
Wind
Turbine
Controls," in European Offshore Wind
(EOW), Stockholm, Sweden, 2009
[6] Hwang, J.-S, Huang, Y.-N., and Hung,
Y.-H. Analytical and Experimental
Study
of
Toggle-Brace-Damper
Systems,
Journal
of
Structural
Engineering, Vol. 131, No. 7, July 2005.
[7] IEC 61400-1, Wind Turbines Part 1:
Design requirements, third edition,
2005-08
[8] Bernd Kunhle, Design Optimization of
the Alstom ECO100 3 MW wind turbine
by using Structural Control Devices ,
Internship Report ALSTOM University
of Stuttgart, August 2010
[9] Laks, J. H., Pao, L. Y., Wright, A. D.,
Control of Wind Turbines: Past,
Present, and Future, American Control
Conference, ACC '09. St. Louis, MI,
July 2009.
[10] Marko, J., Thambiratnam, D. P., and
Perera N. J., Study of viscoelastic and
friction damper configurations in the
seismic mitigation of medium-rise
structures, Journal of Mechanics of
Materials and Structures, 1(6),May
2006.
[11] Rodriguez Tsouroukdissian, A., Wind
turbine
structural
damping
ratio
augmentation hybrid device; Barcelona,
2009. Patent - EP 09167385.5
[12] Rodrguez T., A., Carcangiu, C.E.,
Pineda, I., Fischer, T., Kuhnle, B.,
Scheu, M. and Martin, M. Wind Turbine
Structural Damping Control for Tower

Load
Reduction,
IMAC
XXVIII,
Jacksonville, FL (USA), 2011
[13] Matti Scheu, Structural damping
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