Optimal design and tuned damping performance of the tuned magnetic fluid rolling ball damper for wind turbine tower

When the vibration frequency of the wind turbine tower is close to the inherent frequency, a large displacement response follows, which compromises the turbine tower’s ability to operate safely and steadily. Passive tuned dampers can efficiently exert a damping effect in the resonant frequency range. Nonetheless, their efficiency wanes with vibrations that deviate substantially from these resonant frequencies, given the dampers’ vibration reduction frequency band is narrower. For vibration reduction under variable frequency excitation, we report a thorough investigation of the multi-objective optimal model and vibration damping performance of a novel semi-active tuned magnetic fluid rolling ball damper (TMFRBD) for wind turbine towers. The unique feature of the TMFRBD is its ability to dynamically adjust and control its inherent frequency through the current, broadening the damping bandwidth. For the unique tuning characteristics of the TMFRBD, formulate the multi-objective optimal model consideration of maximizing the adjustable frequency band and damping ratio. In addition, a particle swarm optimization-fuzzy-proportional integrator derivative control strategy is proposed as a semi-active control strategy to realize the self-tuning capabilities of the TMFRBD. To validate the proposed damper’s effectiveness, a scale model wind turbine tower is constructed. The response characteristics of the TMFRBD are investigated under various excitations to gain greater insights into the damper’s performance. The experimental results show that compared with the traditional passive tuned damper, the TMFRBD broadens the damping bandwidth and enhances the robustness by adjusting the current, which makes up for the deficiency of the narrow damping bandwidth of the passive tuned damper. We believe that TMFRBD may be very effective in protecting wind turbines from low-frequency loads and may even extend this idea to the towering class of buildings.