Abstract: |
Wind turbines in general allow the conversion of wind kinetic energy into electrical energy, but their installation on land is becoming increasingly complicated, due to wind speed, lower energy generation, environmental, acoustic and visual aspects, land use, among others. In this sense, offshore wind generation has advantages such as stronger and more constant winds, lower visual and acoustic impact, greater generation capacity, development close to large cities, among others. Offshore wind turbines have great potential to transform the global energy matrix, especially with the use of floating platforms that enable energy generation in deep waters. However, these systems face significant challenges, such as pendulum loads and movements induced by winds and waves that cause fatigue to the structure. This work proposes the use of evolutionary computing techniques, through genetic algorithms, to optimize a passive structural control with tuned mass damping devices (TMDs), installed in the nacelle of Floating Offshore Wind Turbines (FOWTs) of the Barge type, aiming to mitigate these pendular effects. The TMDs are configured to act in the fore-aft and lateral-lateral directions, and the optimization considered the standard deviation of the tower fatigue as a fitness function, in addition to including stroke limits to adapt to the nacelle dimensions. The optimization was performed under the free decay condition, i.e., simplified conditions and application of initial inclinations to the platform. The simulations, conducted in the FAST-SC (Fatigue, Aerodynamics, Structures, and Turbulence – Structural Control) software, demonstrated a reduction of more than 36% in the structural fatigue of the tower compared to systems without structural control and an improvement of more than 11% compared to systems with unidirectional TMD. The results reinforce the effectiveness of passive structural control with bidirectional TMD in mitigating vibrations and increasing the reliability of floating offshore turbines, offering an efficient approach to improve the structural reliability of the system. |