On the influence of rotor nacelle assembly modelling on the computed eigenfrequencies of offshore wind turbines

Abstract

Motivated by the mismatch of measured and computed eigenfrequencies for the second tower mode of offshore wind turbines as well as previous studies examining the influence of including flexible blades in structural models, the need to extend the current integrated model to include flexible blades became apparent. A basic modelling approach which takes the blades as beam elements was implemented in an in-house finite element model of offshore wind turbines and benchmarked for the NREL 5 MW reference turbine with OpenFast. Moreover, the modelling approach was benchmarked with measurements that were obtained during the installation of a Belgian offshore wind turbine. The inclusion of flexible blades is shown to have a significant influence on the second tower mode and is able to reduce the mismatch between measurements and computations. Furthermore, the capability of the inclusion of flexible blades to model the effects of additional parameters is presented. Overall, the need to extend the rotor nacelle modelling in structural models of offshore wind turbines beyond a lumped mass approach is demonstrated.