Repetitive Individual Pitch Control for Load Alleviation at Variable Rotor Speed

Abstract

Abstract In recent years, wind turbines have been growing in size and became more lightweight and thus more flexible. Spatial variation in the wind speed results in asymmetrical blade loads, which include a periodic component increasing with growing wind turbine size. Asymmetrical blade loads can be reduced by individual blade pitch control in general and repetitive control can reduce especially the periodical parts of the loads. We investigate, how a repetitive control based individual blade pitch controller as extension to an existing collective pitch controller can reduce periodical loads resulting from unsteady non-uniform wind conditions under consideration of variable rotor speeds. As plant, we use a simulation model of a 3 MW wind turbine, developed by W2E Wind to Energy GmbH, and control it with a model predictive collective pitch controller. This controller is extended with the proposed repetitive individual pitch control scheme. This study shows, that the presented repetitive controller reduces especially the tower yaw moments by up to 65% and higher harmonics of the blade root moments by up to 30% at the cost of increased pitch activity. Hence, for the use of this controller one has to balance the load reduction of blades and tower with increased loads of the pitch actuators.