Selection of interface DoFs in hub-blade(s) coupling of ampair wind turbine test bed

Substructure coupling is an important tool in several applications of modal analysis. It is particularly relevant in virtual prototyping of complex systems and responds to actual industrial needs, especially in an experimental context. Furthermore, the reverse problem, the decoupling of a substructure from an assembled system, arises when a substructure cannot be tested separately but only when coupled to neighboring substructures, a situation often encountered in practice. In this paper, the dynamic behavior of the Ampair test bed wind turbine rotor, made by three blades - each one bolted to the hub at three points - is analyzed. The aim is both to identify the dynamic behavior of the rotor starting from the frequency response functions (FRFs) of blades and hub, and to select a reduced set of relevant DoFs to represent the interface between blades and hub. FRFs to be used in the coupling procedure are obtained starting from FE model of each substructure, by using a super-element based computational approach. The decoupling problem, with the aim of identifying the dynamic behavior of each blade from the FRFs of the assembled rotor and of the hub, is also considered. © The Society for Experimental Mechanics, Inc. 2014.