Experimental validation of a short-term damping estimation method for wind turbines in nonstationary operating conditions

Modal properties and especially damping of operational wind turbines can vary over short time periods as a consequence of environmental and operational variability. This study seeks to experimentally test and validate a recently proposed method for short-term damping and natural frequency estimation of structures under the influence of varying environmental and operational conditions from measured vibration responses. The method is based on Gaussian process time-dependent auto-regressive moving average (GP-TARMA) modelling and is tested via two applications: a laboratory three-storey shear frame structure with controllable, time-varying damping and a flutter test of a full-scale 7 MW wind turbine prototype, in which two edgewise modes become unstable. Damping estimates for the shear frame compare well with estimates obtained with stochastic subspace identification (SSI) and standard impact hammer tests. The efficacy of the GP-TARMA approach for short-term damping estimation is illustrated through comparison to short-term SSI estimates. For the full-scale flutter test, GP-TARMA model residuals imply that the model cannot be expected to be entirely accurate. However, the damping estimates are physically meaningful and compare well with a previous study. The study shows that the GP-TARMA approach is an effective method for short-term damping estimation from vibration response measurements, given that there are enough training data and that there is a representative model structure.