Lateral vibration mitigation of monopile offshore wind turbines with a spring pendulum pounding tuned mass damper

Lateral vibration of monopile offshore wind turbines (MOWT) is often lightly damped, inducing the apparent vibration under environmental loads. In this paper, a spring pendulum pounding tuned mass damper (SPPTMD) is developed to mitigate the lateral response of MOWT. First, the mathematical model of the controlled MOWT with SPPTMD is established based on the Euler–Lagrange equation. Compared to the referenced model, some improvements are made to enhance the numerical accuracy, where the aerodynamic damping, the bending moment effect, and the 1st mode shape of support structure calculated by Abaqus are considered. In addition, simulations of environmental loads are also introduced. In that regard, a 14 degree-of-freedom (DOF) model for the controlled MOWT with SPPTMD is obtained and compared with FAST. Then, the parameters of SPPTMD are first optimized. On this basis, the parametric analyses and verifications under complicated environmental loads of the proposed SPPTMD are carried out. The results indicate that the SPPTMD has better control effects than the conventional TMD in the low frequency detuning region due to the better energy dissipation capacity in this region. In that regard, the proposed SPPTMD has certain robustness and effectiveness for lateral vibration mitigation for MOWT.