Effects of soil–structure interaction on the design of tuned mass damper to control the seismic response of wind turbine towers with gravity base

This paper studies the effect of soil–structural interaction (SSI) on gravity‐based wind turbine towers equipped with tuned mass dampers (TMDs) subjected to earthquake loading. A small‐scale shaking table test of wind turbine towers with TMD was conducted, and the results showed that using TMD designed considering SSI resulted in larger vibration suppression. A simplified analytical numerical model was developed for SSI analysis considering TMD. The effect of soil site class and the earthquake intensity on the response reduction efficiency of the TMD was also discussed using the simplified model. It is concluded that the TMD efficiency depends not only on the soil stiffness but also on the characteristics of the applied ground motions, both of which are affected by the site classes and earthquake intensity levels. Moreover, the peak acceleration ratio (PAR), the root mean square acceleration ratio (RAR), the peak displacement ratio (PDR), and the root mean square displacement ratio (RDR) of the top of the wind turbine tower were obtained with and without TMD for different earthquake intensities and sites. These parameters can be used as references for the rational selection of TMD parameters considering SSI