Damping performance and its influencing factors of wind turbine towers with constrained layer damping treatment

Constrained layer damping (CLD) is proposed as an energy dissipation measure for vibration control of offshore monopile wind turbine towers (OMWTT). The damping performance and influencing factors of OMWTT with CLD treatment are studied in this paper. First, a theory for calculating the first-order modal loss factor provided by CLD for composite structures is derived using the modal strain energy (MSE) method; second, the error of the theoretical formulation is analyzed using the finite element method; and finally, the influence of each parameter of the CLD on the first-order modal loss factor is discussed. The modal loss factor’s temperature dependence is described with the theory’s aid. The modal damping calculation theory proposed in this paper can rapidly determine the optimal design of CLD, considering the influence of multiple parameters and a complex environment, which could be helpful in the efficient vibration reduction of OMWTT.