The Windmills Project

Content :-
• Motivations and description
• Measurements and analysis plan
• An example: sea microseism at Virgo

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 Motivations
• A wind power plant is going to be installed soon (<1yr)
a few (5-6) kilometers away from Virgo,
and we are concerned about the effects that the generated
seismic disturbance may produce on the interferometer
• A similar wind power plant already exists near the GEO600
inteferometer

 A study of characteristics of seismic signal produced by the

GEO windmills and of possible effects on the
interferometer
is a good subject on which we can exchange data and
experience, interesting and useful for both experiments
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 The Windmills project
1. Characterization of the seismic wave-field produced by the
GEO
windmills (frequency content, speed, direction of propagation
of
the persistent wave-field, its dependency on wind conditions,
2. Investigate for effects
its attenuation btw theinwindmills
the GEO and
datathe interferometer )
(environmental sensors, mirror suspensions, ITF signals)

3. Build a physics model and extrapolate to

predict size of effects that VIRGO may have to face

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The GEO windmills
Nordex S90/2300kW:
3-bladed turbine
• Blades = 90m diameter
• Tower = 110m height
• Rotor speed = 9.6-16.9 rpm
• Wind speed : 10-90 km/h
• Pitch control of blades for optimal
functioning
 regime rotor speed (…)
• Power generator 740-1310 rpm

We expect :
• Seismic peaks in correspondance
of resonances of tower structure :
 between 0.1 Hz and few Hz (steady)
• and peaks in correspondance of
the rotation rate of turbine and 3 multiples
(may change with wind speed)
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 Wind Project Shliekum/Niedersachsen:
1. Nordex S77 (2 windmills, recent installation)
2. Enron Wind EW1.5s EW1.5 (2+1 windmills)
3. Nordex N90 (3 windmills, recent installation)

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3

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2
2
1

 Frequency of seismic peaks can be slightly different for each type of windmill

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 We expect :
• Low frequency surface seismic wave-field (Rayleigh
type)
• propagating through
Persistent, but area content
frequency betweenand
windmills
intensityand
may
GEO600
change with wind conditions
• Most intense seismic peaks  0.1– 5. Hz (plus harmonics).
• Lowest freq. components (less attenuated) are likely to
reach GEO600 structures with sizable intensity

Potential danger for the interferometers :

 Seismic peaks may accidentally match resonances
of our mirror suspensions 6
 Seismic survey of GEO600 site

Equipement :
• 2 portable seismic stations (from Dept. Astronomy U. Firenze, M. Mazzoni)
- tri-axial low frequency (0.2-100 Hz) velocimeters (Lennartz 3D/5 sec)
- A/D converter 24-bits (Guralp CMG-DM24)
- portable hard disk (storage capacity of few weeks)
- GPS antenna receiver
• 1 microphone LF (>1 Hz) plus preAmplifier card (from U. of Naples)
which will be plugged into GEO data acquisition system
(LIGO measurements indicate that propagation occurs in part through air)
• 1 piezo accelerometer (>1Hz) for easy measurement of resonances of each windmill
• 3 GEO seismometers STS2 Streckheisen (>10mHz) for correlation studies
• 1 GEO anemometer (wind speed, direction) 7
Measurements layout :
One station kept in a fixed position (reference)
in continous acquisition
One moved to 10-20 different sites between
windmills array and GEO (1-2 hrs each)

Movable Seismic Station

Reference
Seismic Station

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 Analysis of seismic data (plan)
• Characterize frequency content of seismic field from analysis of peaks in single spectra:
identify major structural resonances of each tower or blades and
look for possible changes of amplitude/freq. with wind speed
• Identify and characterize the persistent seismic wave-field (i.e. its velocity and
direction of propagation, polarization) by correlation analysis of pairs of
simoultaneous
recordings from the two stations (also by principal components analysis)
• Measure seismic attenuation of soil between windmills and GEO600,
identify the propagation path of the surface wave: does it occurs through ground or

partially through air ?

Eventually, we want to build a model which describe the seismic wave attenuation
which can be used to extrapolate results to VIRGO
• Search for effects in permanent GEO seismic stations (3 buildings) and eventually on
other ITF channels: coherency analysis
• Long-term data acquistion:
2 seismic stations + microphone will be left at GEO (approx. 1-2 months)
to allow repeat measurements in different wind conditions (Gillian) 9
 Needs for data exchange
• Data of seismic survey (approx. 500Mb in binary format) will be made available
to both VIRGO and GEO,
easily converted into matlab format
eventually these data will be converted to frame format to allow easy correlation
studies with channels of GEO interferometer

• Open access to GEO600 data across firewalls for some channels:

seismometers, anemometer, B&K microphone… other interesting signals,
- restricted to ILIAS-WG1 team
- for the duration of windmills seismic studies: i.e. at least starting from July 24
- ftp server ?

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An example:
the Microseismic wave-field at Virgo

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Seismic Array for the detection of low freq. wave-field

• 5 tri-axial
SEA 15 km velocimeters
Lennartz 3D/5sec
• Fixed positions
with 1-2km spaceing,
along VIRGO arms
• Few days data taking.

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 Coherent and persistent spectral peak at  0.4 Hz

Amplitude spectra at 4 stations (2hrs data):

Velocity [m/s/sqrt(Hz)]
E-W

Coherence :

high coherence
0.1 - 0.4 Hz
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 The seismic field associated to the 0.4 Hz peak

• 15min data from 4 stations are band-pass filtered around 0.4 Hz

• for each pair of stations, we compute correlation as function of time
• high correlation region measures the travel time of seismic wave btw each pair of stations

Vi1 • Determine the direction of propagation and

Vi2
Delay time speed
Vi5 = +3.8 s
Vi4 of the plane surface wave at 0.3Hz which best fit
Vi3 all travel times
speed =750-800 m/s
+6

+4  East  West
LAG [s]

+2

-2

-4

-6

0 200 400 600 800

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Time [s]
 Evolution of microseismic peaks during a swell

0.1 0.2 0.3 0.4 0.5 1. [Hz]

• During quiet conditions the microseismic peak detected at Virgo is at  0.4 Hz

• The frequency content of the microseismic activity changes with weather and
sea
conditions and is seen to move to lower frequency ( 150mHz) during the
decreasing phase of a swell
• Observed a seasonal effect: the 150mHz peak is often excited in winter-time 15
Effects of the 150 mHz microseism on suspensions :

• First vertical resonance of Virgo SA

lays between 130-170mHz
and can be excited by the 150mHz
microseismic peak
Most affected are the PR (150mHz)
and NI (140mHz) towers

Data from C5 run :

• Quiet time on Dec. 2
• “150mHz” microseism excited on Dec 7

• The 150mHz microseism was often excited

in past winter months (November – March)
143mHz 151mHz disturbing locking of recycled interferometer
3 7
• April : SA vertical damping improved
with increased gain at 150mHz
… wait next winter to effectly test it16!!
And …. some effect on the Dark Fringe :

Accelerometer WE top stage Dark Fringe

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 Another improvement related to microseism:
Inertial Damping of IP stage of mirror suspensions
C1 : the large microseismic activity caused a large motion of the
inverted pendulum stage of mirror suspensions

C2 : improved robustness of Inertial Damping feedback control,

the effect substantially reduced
Seismometer on ground Accelerometer NI top stage

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Monitor of motion of SA top stages : RMS btween 0.2 and 1 Hz

Horizontal E-W Horizontal N-S VERTICAL

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Concluding remarks :
• The WindMills project aims to characterize seismic wave-field produced
by the wind power plan near GEO600, investigate for possible effects
produced on GEO600 and predict effects produced by a similar plant
to be installed few km from VIRGO.
• Gillian M. has spent few days with us at VIRGO,
together we have practiced installing one seismic station and
reviewed tools and tecniques for the data analysis
• She will continue measurements with one Geophone, useful to characterize
frequency content of seismic signal from each windmill

• July 24-29 : will perform seismic survey at the GEO site,

then seismic stations and microphone will be left at GEO for longer term meas.

• Data will be made available to both sites for analysis,

also necessary to access GEO600 data for correlation studies:
need to open an ftp access across firewalls
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