Description
Presentation at EURODYN 2023: 12th International Conference on Structural Dynamics, Delft, The Netherlands, 2 - 5 July 2023The high demands of renewable energy have instigated the increase of wind farms’ capacity, which have required larger wind turbines and, consequently, monopile foundations of larger dimensions. The installation of offshore monopiles, which is typically performed by an impact hammer, generates high noise levels that can cause severe damage to marine wildlife, such as hearing injury, behavioral disturbance, or even death. Although current noise attenuation techniques used in this process have shown a significant noise reduction at high frequency ranges, mitigating low-frequency noise is still extremely challenging and becomes a concern for the new wind turbine models. To address such problem, here we propose an elastic metamaterial-based structure composed of single-phase resonant structures. The proposed structure, which we call a meta-interface, is introduced between the monopile and the hammer and is used to remove energy from the input signal associated with high noise levels. To that end, we first identify the frequency ranges associated with high sound pressure levels, which were shown to be related to the monopile’s eigenmodes. Then we design the meta-interface’s periodic unit cells so that the elastic/acoustic waves at identified frequency ranges are attenuated. A meta-interface is then realized by replicating the unit cell along the monopile wall (matching the thickness) to form a ring-shaped layer, and then by stacking up these concentric layers. A frequency analysis of the pile driving system with the meta-interface shows that the new noise levels attain a significant attenuation in frequency ranges lower than 1000 Hz.
| Period | 5 Jul 2023 |
|---|---|
| Event title | 12th International Conference on Structural Dynamics, EURODYN 2023 |
| Event type | Conference |
| Sponsors | Data-Centric Engineering, DEWESoft, et al., Ommatidia LiDAR, Polytec GmbH, Royal HaskoningDHV |
| Location | Delft, NetherlandsShow on map |