Fatigue Reliability and Effective Turbulence Models in Wind Farms

Offshore wind farms with 100 or more wind turbines are expected to be installed many places during the next years. Behind a wind turbine a wake is formed where the mean wind speed decreases slightly and the turbulence intensity increases significantly. This increase in turbulence intensity in wakes behind wind turbines can imply a significant reduction in the fatigue lifetime of wind turbines placed in wakes. In this paper the design code model in the wind turbine code IEC 61400-1 (2005) is evaluated from a probabilistic point of view, including the importance of modeling the SN-curve by linear or bi-linear models. Further, the influence on the fatigue reliability is investigated from modeling the fatigue response by a stochastic part related to the ambient turbulence and the eigenfrequencies of the structure and a deterministic, sinusoidal part with frequency of revolution of the rotor.Offshore wind farms with 100 or more wind turbines are expected to be installed many places during the next years. Behind a wind turbine a wake is formed where the mean wind speed decreases slightly and the turbulence intensity increases significantly. This increase in turbulence intensity in wakes behind wind turbines can imply a significant reduction in the fatigue lifetime of wind turbines placed in wakes. In this paper the design code model in the wind turbine code IEC 61400-1 (2005) is evaluated from a probabilistic point of view, including the importance of modeling the SN-curve by linear or bi-linear models. Further, the influence on the fatigue reliability is investigated from modeling the fatigue response by a stochastic part related to the ambient turbulence and the eigenfrequencies of the structure and a deterministic, sinusoidal part with frequency of revolution of the rotor