Modares Mechanical Engineering

Modares Mechanical Engineering

Hybrid Passive Vibration Control of a Wind Turbine Blade Integrating Acoustic Black Hole (ABH), Viscoelastic Damping, and Non-linear Roller Damper

Document Type : Original Article

Authors
Reza Fazaeli
Aliakbar Akbari
Mechanical Engineering Department, Ferdowsi University of Mashhad
10.48311/mme.2026.123155.83094
Abstract
The increasing size and structural flexibility of megawatt-scale wind turbine blades make them highly susceptible to edgewise vibrations under rotating dynamic loads. Conventional passive control methods, such as tuned mass dampers (TMDs), effectively mitigate vibrations but add auxiliary mass, thereby increasing static root loads. This study proposes a novel, fully passive hybrid control framework integrating a one-dimensional Acoustic Black Hole (1D-ABH), a localized viscoelastic damping layer, and a Nonlinear Roller Damper (NRD) to simultaneously suppress edgewise vibrations and reduce blade mass. A two-degree-of-freedom (2-DOF) nonlinear coupled dynamic model is derived based on rotating Euler-Bernoulli beam theory, incorporating centrifugal stiffening, Coriolis forces, and rolling friction. The governing equations are solved using the variable-step Runge-Kutta method across ten distinct operational scenarios. The results reveal that a bare ABH structure, despite reducing mass, increases steady-state vibration amplitudes by 20.7% due to localized stiffness degradation. Adding a viscoelastic layer compensates for this reduction, yielding a 15.78% vibration decrease. Ultimately, the optimal hybrid configuration (Scenario 8) achieves a 15.4% total blade mass reduction while providing a 21.53% decrease in steady-state RMS displacement and a 33.87% reduction in peak amplitude. These findings demonstrate that the proposed hybrid system offers a highly efficient strategy for structural lightweighting and robust vibration suppression in modern wind turbine blades.
Keywords
Wind turbine blade
Edgewise vibration
Acoustic Black Hole (ABH)
Nonlinear Roller Damper (NRD)
Passive vibration control
Subjects
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Modares Mechanical Engineering
Volume 27, Issue 2
February 2027
Pages 169-182