A state-of-the-art review of the vibration and noise of wind turbine drivetrains

Abstract Wind energy is an important sustainable energy to achieve carbon neutrality. To capture maximum wind energy, wind turbine sizes sharply increase and turbines work under more complicated conditions as well as loads, especially for offshore applications. As critical components to transfer wind power into electric energy, drivetrains of wind turbines inevitably face challenges of higher vibration and noise. However, under the new situation there is a gap in comprehensive review and summary on the vibration and noise of wind turbine drivetrains. According to the above problems, this paper focuses on wind turbine drivetrains, and reviews the vibration and noise from a systematic perspective of “generation-analysis-reduction”. The generation is analyzed from aspects of sources to transfer, and advanced methods for in-depth analysis are compared. Moreover, state-of-the-art reduction technologies are covered and summarized based on the innovative classification framework with a three-level hierarchy formed by source suppression, transfer path optimization, and control intervention. Further, a full discussion is presented and thus attractive research prospects are recommended. It is concluded that opportunities and challenges coexist in the design and application of large wind turbine drivetrains considering vibration and noise, and expected that this paper can provide a general reference for related research.