Reduction of wind turbine structural loads caused by rotor asymmetries

To enable further growth of wind turbine dimensions and rated power, it is essential to decrease structural loads that wind turbines experience. Therefore a great portion of research is focused on control algorithms for reduction of structural loads, but typically wind turbine rotor is considered to be perfectly symmetrical, and therefore such control algorithms cannot reduce structural loads caused by rotor asymmetries. In this paper, the reduction of wind turbine structural loads caused by rotor asymmetries is discussed. To this aim, suitable transformation of structural loads and control algorithm based on such transformation are proposed. Simulation results show that proposed control algorithm is capable of reducing structural loads caused by rotor asymmetries.