Active Damping of Torsional Vibrations in The Drive Train of A DFIG Wind Turbine
Active Damping of Torsional Vibrations in The Drive Train of A DFIG Wind Turbine
Abstract. Torsional vibrations in the drive train of the [2]-[3]. The generator speed is fed to the BPF for
doubly-fed induction generator (DFIG) based wind turbine can generating a torque ripple with the torsional frequency
cause large mechanical stress and reduce the life cycle of the and an appropriate phase. This ripple is added to the
components. They can be easily induced by sudden changes from torque command value and then the torsional vibration
the turbine rotor side or grid side. In this paper, a model-based can be compensated. However, if the vibration is induced
active damper of the torsional vibration designed with the linear- by the grid fault, which is much larger than the one
quadratic-Gaussian (LQG) algorithm is proposed. The modelling induced by wind variations, the BPF is not able to
of the drive train takes the flexibility of the rotor blades into
account and utilizes a three-mass model. A combination of
compensate it effectively [4].
different simulation packages, namely FAST (Fatigue, This paper gives an alternative solution, which works
Aerodynamics, Structure, Turbulence) and Matlab/Simulink even in the case of a grid fault. The main idea is that the
describing important dynamics of both the mechanical and torsional vibration can be suppressed by eliminating the
electrical side, is applied to analyse the vibrations in the drive speed difference between the turbine rotor and generator,
train and test the algorithm. Simulation results show that the if they are referred to the same side of the gearbox (e.g.
proposed active damping can suppress the torsional vibrations in in the low speed side). The LQG control algorithm with
the drive train effectively even if a gird fault occurs. the drive train model is employed for achieving better
control performance. To validate the method a
Key words sophisticated wind turbine model for simulation is built
in Matlab/Simulink. The aerodynamics and structure
Torsional vibration, Active damping, Drive train, DFIG, dynamics of the turbine is modelled with the FAST,
LQG control which has an interface to Matlab/Simulink. The electrical
parts of the turbine, including the generator, control
1. Introduction system, power electronics, protection systems and the
grid, are modelled directly with Simulink, as shown in
Wind turbines based on DFIG are the most installed wind Fig. 1. Then all details of the turbine in both mechanical
energy generation systems due to the high energy and electrical parts are simulated. Simulations show that
efficiency and low cost. Since the stator of the DFIG is the proposed method can effectively suppress torsional
directly connected to the grid, sudden changes from vibrations even in the worst-case, i.e., the turbine is
turbine rotor or gird side, such as wind gusts or voltage loaded with rated torque before a low voltage ride
sags, can induce torsional vibrations in the drive train. through (LVRT) event with a voltage sag of 100%.
They cause large mechanical stress and lead to reduction
gen DFIG (electrical part)
Grid
of lifetime of components. According to [1] gearbox- Drive
Train
related failures are responsible for over 20% of downtime Wind Te
Back-to-Back
of the wind turbines. They usually need replacement only Converter
speed side. D12, D23 are the damping coefficients. θ1,2,3 and
ω1,2,3 represent the rotation angle and rotation angular 40
PSD (dB)
speed of the three inertias respectively. Twin and Te
20
represent the aerodynamic and generator torque. The
dynamics referred to the low-speed shaft (LSS) is given by 0
equations (10)-(14).
-20
J 33 K23 (2 3 ) D23 (2 3 ) N Te (12) B. Active Damping with LQG
1 2 1 2 (13)
Fig. 7 shows the schematic of the proposed control
2 3 2 3 . (14)
strategy. The controller is designed to compensate the
Where N is the gearbox ratio. torsional vibration in the drive train by the modification
The natural frequencies of torsional vibration f1, f2 of the of reference of the generator torque.
three-mass model are given by (15): Te* Tbc Tda . (16)
1 b b2 4c 0.5 Where Tbc is the basic torque control reference calculated
f1,2 ( ) , (15)
2 2 2 from the torque-speed curve. Tda is the damping torque
where derived by the LQG, which is simply the combination of
1 1 1 1 a linear-quadratic regulator (LQR) and a Kalman filter.
b [ K12 ( ) K 23 ( )]
J1 J 2 J 2 J3
Speed-Torque Low-pass
and curve Filter
J1 J 2 J 3
c K12 K 23 (
). Twin
J1 J 2 J 3 Drive train
Tbc Te* Converter and Te gen
In this three-mass model the parameters J1, J2 and K12 are and Rotor
T generator (mechanical)
unknown. But they can be dreived if f1 and f2 are known. da
. (17)
y Cx
6000
5000
x is a vector consisting of five system states:
LSS Torque (kNm)
x [1 2 1 2 2 3 2 3 3 ]T .
4000
3000
u represents the control input Tda and ud is the disturbance
2000
input Twin. 3 is the generator speed, which is the only
1000
measurement of the system (17). The other matrices and
0
0 5 10 15 20 25
vectors are shown in the following:
Time (sec.)
T
N N
Fig. 5. The LSS torque with a LVRT event B 0 0 0 ,
J3 J3
According to the power spectral density (PSD) analysis of T
1
LSS torque, shown in Fig. 6, two dominant oscillation Bd 0 0 0 0 ,
frequencies can be extracted at about 1.7Hz and 4Hz, J1
while the torsional frequency according to the two-mass
(large Q) and low control output (large R). For the Fig. 8. Generator speeds with/without damping
simplicity they are usually set as diagonal. With the LQR
theory if the optimal input can be found, the index function The characteristics of the loads in the drive train in time
J can be minimized, which means all state variables will domain and frequency domain are shown in Fig 9. and
tend to zero. In our case only the states x1 and x3 should be Fig.10., respectively. It can be observed that the LSS
controlled to zero so they have much larger weighting torque also oscillated significantly less if the damping
factors then others. The appropriate Q and R can be torque was activated. But according to the PSD in Fig. 10
obtained by running simulations.
7000
The LQR needs all information of the system. A discrete no damping
Kalman filter is used here, which is robust to measurement 6000 LQG three-mass
LQG two-mass
and system noises. It makes a one-step-ahead prediction of
5000
the states, and also estimates what the measured output
LSS Torque (kNm)
20
where ˆ gen is the numerical differentiation of the generator
0
speed filtered by a first order lowpass filter.
-20
4. Simulation
-40 0 1 2
10 10 10
The proposed active damper is tested by simulations. The Frequency (Hz)
test scenario is same as described in the section 3. Multiple Fig. 10. PSD of LSS torques with/without damping
References
[1] P. Asmus and M. Seitzler, “The wind energy operation &
maintenance report,” Nat. Wind Watch, Rowe, MA, Feb.
2010.
[2] E. Bossanyi, “Wind turbine control for load reduction,
Wind Energy, vol. 6, no. 3, pp. 229-244, 2003.
[3] A. Nasiri, E. Muljadi, G. Mandic, and F. Oyague, "Active
Torque Control for Gearbox Load Reduction in a Variable
Speed Wind Turbine," IEEE Transactions on Industry
Applications, vol. 48, no. 6, pp. 2424-2432, 2012.