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Wind Turbines as a Metamaterial-Like Urban Layer: An Experimental Investigation Using a Dense Seismic Array and Complementary Sensing Technologies

Description: 

A fundamental difficulty in earthquake engineering is the deflection and control of the impacts of the complex urban seismic wavefield on the built environment. The interactions between the soil and the structures, as well as between the structures, have a significant impact on the lateral variety of ground motion with respect to earthquake damage. Here we report on a study investigating the hypothesis that flexural and compressional resonances of a large number of structures – in this case wind turbines in a wind farm – strongly influence the propagation of the seismic wavefield. A large-scale geophysical experiment demonstrates that surface waves are strongly damped in several distinct frequency bands when interacting at the resonances of a set of wind turbines. The ground-anchored arrangement of these turbines produces unusual amplitude and phase patterns in the observed seismic wavefield as well as differences in the intensity ratio between stations inside and outside the wind farm and in surface wave polarization. Additional geophysical equipment (e.g. an optical fiber, rotational and barometric sensors) was used to provide essential explanatory and complementary measurements. A numerical model of the turbine also confirms the mechanical resonances that are responsible for the strong coupling between the wind turbines and the seismic wavefield observed in certain frequency ranges of engineering interest.

Session: Integrative Assessment of Soil-Structure Interaction and Local Site Effects in Seismic Hazard Analysis [Poster Session]

Type: Poster

Date: 5/3/2024

Presentation Time: 08:00 AM (local time)

Presenting Author: Marco

Student Presenter: No

Invited Presentation: 

Authors