Design, analysis and evaluation of robust dampers for controlling wind turbine vibrations throughout their lifecycle

This PhD scholarship is offered by the Aura Centre for Doctoral Training in Offshore Wind Energy and the Environment; a partnership between the Universities of Durham, Hull, Newcastle and Sheffield. The successful applicant will undertake a PG-Dip training year at the University of Hull and will continue their PhD research at the University of Sheffield.

For more information visit www.auracdt.hull.ac.uk. Or if you have a direct question about the project, please email [Email Address Removed] and we will forward the query to the relevant supervisor. Please do not contact the project supervisors directly.

Large wind turbines show a high degree of flexibility making them vulnerable to instability and vibration-induced damage. This project addresses this problem by creating new damper systems that increase the robustness of the main structural components to resonant vibration.

Wind turbines create special challenges for damper systems because they need to function over a wide range of temperatures and wind speeds whilst surviving transient and impact loading from many different sources. They need to operate for long periods of time under relatively harsh environmental conditions. Additionally, maintenance of wind turbines is demanding because of access difficulties related to their location and size. Damping systems for large wind turbines therefore need to be adaptable and durable.

Important research questions that have not been answered to date include:

1. How does one evaluate the effectiveness of damping applied to a large wind turbine?
2. What type of damping is most suitable for a large wind turbine and how might it be deployed in an efficient way?
3. How might one assess the durability of a damper that cannot be built and tested at full scale due to cost limitations?

This project will provide answers for each of these.

The initial stage will be to develop a sufficiently detailed numerical test bed using finite element software with some multi-physics capability. This is most likely to be a large wind turbine blade. This will allow the fair comparison of dampers employing different approaches including low wave-speed material, geometrically nonlinear polymer TMDs, air films, eddy current and fibre-based dampers along with less developed concepts. The second phase of the research will involve developing the most promising approach to allow for the specifics of the application considering the environmental demands and the alteration of conditions such as the change in blade natural frequencies depending on rotation speed and position within one cycle.

This work will be supported by suitable experimental studies involving vibration and cyclic loading under many different conditions. This can be conducted with lab-scale equipment rather than a full-size turbine by using numerical analyses to supplement results in an appropriate manner.

Entry requirements

If you have received a First-class Honours degree or a 2:1 Honours degree and a Masters (or the international equivalents) in Engineering or Physics, we would like to hear from you. 

If your first language is not English, or you require Tier 4 student visa to study, you will be required to provide evidence of your English language proficiency level that meets the requirements of the Aura CDT’s academic partners. This course requires academic IELTS 7.0 overall, with no less than 6.0 in each skill.

How to apply

Applications are via the University of Hull online portal; you must also download a supplementary application form from the Aura CDT website, complete and submit as part of the online application.

For more information about the Aura CDT including links and detailed instructions please visit our how to apply page.

Eligibility

Research Council funding for postgraduate research has residence requirements. Our Aura CDT scholarships are available to Home (UK) Students. To be considered a Home student, and therefore eligible for a full award, a student must have no restrictions on how long they can stay in the UK and have been ordinarily resident in the UK for at least 3 years prior to the start of the scholarship (with some further constraint regarding residence for education). For full eligibility information, please refer to the EPSRC website. In addition, a number of Aura CDT Scholarships will be available to International Students across the projects offered by the partner institutions.

Webinar

For more information why not watch a recording of the webinar we held on 29 November? You will be able to hear the Project Leads from each partner institutions, as well as the question and answer session that followed the presentations.