MECHANICS AND MATERIALS IN DESIGN

Theory, Experiments and Applications in Engineering

PAPER REF: To be completed by the Editors

EXPERIMENTAL AND OPERATIONAL MODAL ANALYSIS OF A

SMALL WIND TURBINE TOWER
Anelise Dick1(*), Rui Carneiro de Barros1, Manuel Braz-César2
1
CONSTRUCT/FEUP, Faculdade de Engenharia da Universidade do Porto, Porto, Portugal
2
CONSTRUCT/FEUP, and Instituto Politécnico de Bragança, ESTIG, Bragança, Portugal
(*)
Email: up201909356@edu.fe.up.pt

ABSTRACT
Wind power production has been growing rapidly in the last decade, as it is represented
mainly by the increasing number of wind farms. However, given the governmental targets for
reducing CO2 emissions in the environment, studies and the market for small wind turbines
(SWT) is growing rapidly. Usually, SWT support towers are flexible steel structures with
hollow sections. Given their geometry, they are subject to vibrations and related problems.
Some failure problems can be avoided by related vibration tests.

Two different vibration tests can be used to analyze the dynamic behavior of the tower,
providing information about its operating characteristics in different working conditions. In
this paper measurements campaign was carried out on a 17.8 m steel SWT tower using
Experimental modal analysis (EMA) and Operational modal analysis (OMA). Comparative
results are discussed and compared with those of a finite element model (FEM). Results
indicate the viability of OMA and the influence of wind excitation on the dynamic behavior
of the tower.

Keywords: Small wind turbine, Experimental modal analysis, Operational modal analysis,
Dynamic behaviour, Steel tapered hollow tower.

INTRODUCTION
Investigation on the dynamic behavior of steel hollow towers as support for small wind
turbines (SWT) is growing, with the expansion of this energy market. To determine the
dynamic characteristics of a structure there are two experimental methods available:
Experimental Modal Analysis (EMA) and Operational Modal Analysis (OMA); the main
difference between these methods is the need or not for a controlled excitation source. In
EMA, it is necessary to know the excitation force and the response of the structure; on the
other hand, in OMA only the response of the structure is measured, so that for general
structures OMA is largely more applied [1-2].
This study emphasizes the importance of the critical analysis of the results from in-field tests,
showing the difference between the results of the two aforementioned technics, when applied
to a 17.8 m height stell hollow tower, with base outer diameter 0.5897 m and the top outer
diameter 0.1994 m, and a constant wall thickness of 4 mm.
In-field tests were carried out using SIRIUS DAQ system combined with SBOX from
DEWEsoft, shear accelerometers and a Lixie 100H impac hammer with soft and medium
hardeness tip. The acquire data were post-processed in Dewesoft-X software.

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9th International Conference M2D2021, Funchal/Portugal 27Jun-01Jul 2021
Symposium/Topic-NN: To be completed by the Editors

RESULTS AND CONCLUSIONS

The aforementioned thecnics were applied in the structure with the same accelerometers
setup, in x and y direction, located 1 m and 2.2 m above the base. Figure 1 shows the
normalized magnitude spectra from impact hammer test (a) and ambient vibration test (b). It
is clear the strong noise present in the frequencies bellow 40 Hz in (a), even using a soft tip; it
was only possible to determine 3 higher frequencies: 51.6 ± 0.05, 61.65 ± 0.05 and 87.6 ± 0.05
Hz. Whereas in (b) the lower modes are more evident with the first frequency: 1.55 ± 0.05 and
the second 5.8 ± 0.05 Hz. The first frequency is bellow the rotor and blade passing frequency,
and the tower is considered to have a soft-soft dynamic behavior.
N o r m a liz e d m a g n itu d e

1.000

0.100

0.010

0.001

0.000 Soft tip X

Soft tip Y
0.000
0 10 20 30 40Frequency
50(Hz) 60 70 80 90 10 0
N o r m a liz e d m a g n itu d e

1 .0 00 Averag ed X
Averag ed Y
1P
0 .1 00

0 .0 10

0 .0 01
0 10 20 30 4 0Fr eq u enc y
50( Hz) 60 70 80 90 100

Fig. 1 – Averaged normalized spectra (a) impact hammer test (b) ambient vibration test.

The frequencies of the structure that are in the rotor frequency range, are strongly influenced
by the rotor and blade passing frequencies as the rotor has a variational speed from 180 yo
775 rpm.
The first frequency of the finit element model agreed with the experimental result, however in
the higher frequencies some differences can be seen between the FEM [3] and the
experimental results.

REFERENCES
[1] Pavlovic M., Trevisani S., Cecchi S. -- A Procedure for the Structural Identification of
Masonry Towers. Journal of Nondestructive Evaluation, vol. 38, 2, 1–12, 2019, doi:
10.1007/s10921-019-0575-8.
[2] Girardi M., Padovani C., Pellegrini D., Robol L. -- A finite element model updating
method based on global optimization. Mechanical Systems and Signal Processing 107372,
2020, doi: 10.1016/j.ymssp.2020.107372.
[3] Dick A., Barros R.C, Braz-César M.T -- Finite element model calibration effects on the
static and dynamic response of a metallic hollow tower. COMPDYN 2021: Proceedings of the
8th International Conference on Computational Methods in Structural Dynamics and
Earthquake Engineering, vol 1, pp 2132-2143, 2021, ISBN 978-618-85072-3-4.

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