Simulation of ground motion emissions from wind turbines in low mountain ranges: implications for amplitude decay prediction

The characterization and prediction of wind turbine (WT) emissions are important steps in reducing their impact on humans or sensitive technologies such as seismic stations or physics experiments. Here, WT ground motion emissions are studied along two measurement lines set up at two wind farms on the Eastern Swabian Alb, southwest Germany. The main purpose of the data analysis is to estimate amplitude decay rates from vertical component data and surface wave phase velocities excited by the permanent motion of the WT towers. Phase velocities as well as geological information serve as input to build realistic subsurface models for numerical wave field simulations. Amplitude A decay rates are characterized by b-values through \(A\sim 1/r^b\) depending on distance r and are derived from peaks in power spectral density (PSD). We find an increase of \(b_\text {PSD}\) with frequency from 0.5 to 3.2 for field data. For low frequencies (1.2 Hz and 3.6 Hz), \(b_\text {PSD}\) ranges from 0.5 to 1.1, hence close to the geometrical spreading factor of surface waves (\(b_\text {PSD}=1\)). Anelastic damping and scattering seem not to be significant at these frequencies which also shows in numerical simulations for quality factors \(Q=50-200\). We also find that the emitted wavefields from several WTs interfere, especially in the near-field, and produce strong local ground motion amplitudes. The inclusion of a steep topography present in low mountain ranges adds more wave field distortions which can further increase the amplitudes. This needs to be considered when predicting WT induced ground motions.