Breiffni Fitzgerald

Dr. Breiffni Fitzgerald

School of Engineering, Trinity College Dublin, Dublin, Ireland
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Research Focus & Metrics

Academic Career Length

17Years (2010-Present)

(Calculated once Scilit publication data is synced: current year − year of first publication + 1)

Representative Publications

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11 November 2019 in Structural Control and Health Monitoring
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Saptarshi SarkarSaptarshi Sarkar
Saptarshi Sarkar
Breiffni FitzgeraldBreiffni Fitzgerald
Breiffni Fitzgerald

11 January 2013 in Structural Control and Health Monitoring
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Breiffni FitzgeraldBreiffni Fitzgerald
Breiffni Fitzgerald
BBBiswajit Basu
Biswajit Basu
SNS. R. K. Nielsen
S. R. K. Nielsen
This paper investigates the use of active tuned mass dampers (ATMDs) for the mitigation of in‐plane vibrations in rotating wind turbine blades. The rotating wind turbine blades with tower interaction represent time‐varying dynamical systems with periodically varying mass, stiffness, and damping matrices. The aim of this paper is to determine whether ATMDs could be used to reduce in‐plane blade vibrations in wind turbines with better performance than compared with their passive counterparts. A Euler–Lagrangian wind turbine mathematical model based on energy formulation was developed for this purpose, which considers the structural dynamics of the system and the interaction between in‐plane and out‐of‐plane vibrations. Also, the interaction between the blades and the tower including the tuned mass dampers is considered. The wind turbine with tuned mass dampers was subjected to gravity, centrifugal, and turbulent aerodynamic loadings. Investigations show promising results for the use of ATMDs in the vibration control of wind turbine blades. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

1 October 2020 in Engineering Structures
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ZZZili Zhang
Zili Zhang
Breiffni FitzgeraldBreiffni Fitzgerald
Breiffni Fitzgerald

1 April 2018 in Journal of Sound and Vibration
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Journal Article
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Breiffni FitzgeraldBreiffni Fitzgerald
Breiffni Fitzgerald
Saptarshi SarkarSaptarshi Sarkar
Saptarshi Sarkar
ASAndrea Staino
Andrea Staino

28 February 2020 in IEEE Transactions on Control Systems Technology
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Saptarshi SarkarSaptarshi Sarkar
Saptarshi Sarkar
Breiffni FitzgeraldBreiffni Fitzgerald
Breiffni Fitzgerald
BBBiswajit Basu
Biswajit Basu
This article proposes a new strategy for individual blade pitch control to regulate power production while simultaneously alleviating structural loads on spar-type floating offshore wind turbines. Individual blade pitch control types of algorithms for offshore wind turbines are sparse in the literature though there are expected benefits from experience on such types of controllers for onshore wind turbines. Wind turbine blade pitch actuators are primarily used to maintain the rated power production at the above-rated wind speeds, and therefore, control algorithms are usually developed only to regulate power production. The scope of reducing structural loads using individual pitch control has been proven to be very promising over the last decade, and numerous individual pitch control algorithms have been proposed by researchers. However, reduction in structural loads often results in a degradation in power production and regulation. Furthermore, improving power regulation often has a detrimental effect on the floating platform motion. In this article, a new control strategy is proposed to achieve the two competing objectives. The proposed controller combines a low-authority linear-quadratic (LQ) controller with an integral action to reduce the 1P (once per revolution) aerodynamic loads while regulating power production using the same pitch actuators that are traditionally used only to optimize power production. The proposed controller is compared against the baseline controller (BC) used by the state-of-the-art wind turbine simulator FAST using a high-fidelity aeroelastic offshore wind turbine model. Numerical results show that the proposed controller offers improved performance in optimizing power production and reducing wind turbine and platform loads compared with the BC over an envelope of wind-wave loading environment.

1 November 2014 in Journal of Sound and Vibration
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Journal Article
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Breiffni FitzgeraldBreiffni Fitzgerald
Breiffni Fitzgerald
BBBiswajit Basu
Biswajit Basu