TremAc

Objective criteria for vibration and sound emissions of onshore wind turbines

Goals

  • Identification of the main parameters and thresholds for an objective assessment of turbine sound and vibration emissions taking into account turbine design, topography and distance from the place of immission.
  • Development of prognosis and simulation models for the emission and propagation of airborne sound (especially infrasound) and vibration (structure-borne sound) interacting with structures, initially for flat terrain and subsequently for complex mountainous terrain and different subsoil strengths.
  • Development of strategies for optimising wind turbines through adaptable constructive designs with a view to reducing sound and vibration emissions, this applies, for example, to the positioning of the drive train or of the tower and to shielding procedures.
  • Increasing acceptance and creation of a sound data base in terms of enviromental health and environmental psychology in order to promote an objective discussion of potential health risks of wind turbines.

Contact

TremAc is lead by the Institute of Soil Mechanics and Rock Mechanics (IBF) at Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT).

For more information about TremAc, please contact Dr. Peter Kudella at IBF.

News

  • Sound from wind energy facilities: the results from the TremAc study (27/10/2020)
    Please join us for a webinar about the results of a unique long-term study on the Wilstedt wind farm in Lower Saxony. Within the TremAc project, the Wilstedt wind farm was investigated for the third time. The study was unique in that it combined measurements and survey data to find out why people can be strongly disturbed ...
  • WindForS at WindEurope 2018 (22/09/2018)
    Lots of people from WindForS will be presenting papers and posters at the 2018 WindEurope conference in Hamburg. We’ll have: Professor Po Wen Cheng will be chairing the session on new approaches to drivetrains, yaw, converters, cables, … and airborne. Ines Würth from U. Stuttgart talking about her results from the VORKAST project Kolja Müller from U. Stuttgart presenting ...
  • Invited Talks at AGU 2017 (2/08/2017)
    WindForS Director Dr. Andrew Clifton has been invited to present two talks at the American Geophysical Union Meeting in New Orleans in December 2017. The presentations take a systems perspective on wind energy in complex terrain.
  • TremAc Joint Project Launched (1/02/2016)
    How much noise is produced by Wind Turbines? Wind turbines emit sound and vibrations. The TremAc joint project investigates how they are related and how they can be better predicted and reduced Wind energy is to have a major share in the future renewable energy mix. The TremAc project, funded by the Federal Ministry of Economic Affairs ...

Publications

Journal articles:

  • Blumendeller, Esther.; Kimmig, I.; Huber, G.; Rettler, P.; Cheng, P.W. Investigations on Low Frequency Noises of On-Shore Wind Turbines. Acoustics 2020, 2, 343-365. DOI: 10.3390/acoustics2020020 
  • Zieger, T., Nagel, S., Lutzmann, P., Kaufmann, I., Ritter, J., Ummenhofer, T., Knödel, P. and Fischer, P., 2020. Simultaneous identification of wind turbine vibrations by using seismic data, elastic modeling and laser Doppler vibrometry. Wind Energy, early online.
  • Nagel, S., Zieger, T., Luhmann, B., Knödel, P., Ritter, J. and Ummenhofer, T., 2019. Erschütterungsemissionen von Windenergieanlagen, Stahlbau, 88, 559-573.
  • Zieger, T. and Ritter, J.R.R., 2018. Influence of wind turbines on seismic stations in the upper rhine graben, SW Germany. J. Seismology, 22, 105-122, doi: 10.1007/s10950-017-9694-9.
  • Friedrich, T., Zieger, T., Forbriger, T. and Ritter, J.R.R., 2018. Locating Wind Farms by Seismic Interferometry and Migration in the Upper Rhine Graben, SW Germany. J. Seismology, 22, 1469–1483.

Major conference contributions:

  • Zieger T. and Ritter, J.R.R., 2019. Wind turbines and their emissions – an interdisciplinary approach to validate the induced seismic and acoustic wavefields, Geophys. Res. Abstr., 21, EGU2019-4841.
  • Zieger T. and Ritter, J.R.R., 2018. Wind turbines and their emitted seismic wavefields: results from different locations, Geophys. Res. Abstr., 20, EGU2018-4321.
  • Calarco, Francesca.; Cheng, P. W.; Zieger, T.; Ritter, J.. Acoustic and seismic emissions from wind turbines. Presented at German Wind Energy Conference DEWEK 2017, Bremen. DOI:10.18419/opus-9694

Project Partners

logo-KIT
logoTUM
logo-Halle
logo_unistuttgart_deutsch_cmyk-01
Logo_MesH_neu_kl
logo_Uni-Bielfeld

Project Funding

TremAC is funded by the Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy

  • Project number 0325839
  • Project duration 01.02.2016 – 31.01.2019
bmwe_4c_gef_en