TITLE:
Observer-Based Disturbance Accommodation Control Strategy for Useful Lifetime Control and Structural Load Mitigation of Wind Turbines
AUTHORS:
Rutendo Goboza, Jackson Githu Njiri, James Kuria Kimotho
KEYWORDS:
Disturbance Accommodation Control, Individual Pitch Control, Lifetime Control, Structural Load Mitigation
JOURNAL NAME:
Journal of Power and Energy Engineering,
Vol.10 No.7,
July
28,
2022
ABSTRACT: Wind turbines undergo degradation due to various factors
which induce stress, thereby leading to fatigue damage
to various wind turbine components. In addition, the current increase in demand for electrical power has led to the development of large wind turbines, which result in increased structural loads, therefore, increasing the possibility
of early failure due to fatigue load. This paper proposes a proportional integral
observer (PI-Observer) based disturbance accommodation controller (DAC) with individual
pitch control (IPC) for load mitigation to reduce components’ damage and ensure
the wind turbine is operational for the expected lifetime. The results indicate
a reduction in blades’ bending moments with a standard deviation of 15.9%, which positively impacts several other wind turbine subsystems. Therefore,
the lifetime control strategy demonstrates effective structural load mitigation
without compromise on power generation, thus, achieving a nominal lifetime control to inhibit premature failure.