Impact of fault ride-through requirements on wind turbine structural loads

paper is mainly focusing on the impact of the fault ride-through requirements on the wind turbine structural loads. In this respect, it proposes a computer simulation approach for the quantification of wind turbines structural loads, caused by the fault ride-through grid requirements. This approach, exemplified for the case of an active stall wind turbine, can be used by the industry as a design tool. It relies on a combination of complimentary simulation tools, with different specialised expertises. In order to quantify how the grid faults and grid requirements do affect the wind turbines loads and thus their lifetime, a rainflow analysis of the structural loads is performed and presented for two cases, i.e. one when the turbine is immediately disconnected from the grid, when a grid fault occurs and one when the turbine, as it is equipped with a fault ride-through controller, remains connected to the grid during the grid fault.