Hybrid testing of wind turbine components using Kane’s method

Hybrid testing combines numerical simulations with physical experiments to evaluate large mechanical systems, such as wind turbines, that are impractical to test at full scale. While hybrid testing has been widely applied in structural dynamics, its extension to complex multibody dynamic systems remains challenging due to nonlinear kinematics and strongly coupled degrees of freedom. Although Kane’s method underpins widely used wind turbine simulation tools, hybrid testing frameworks that directly integrate Kane-based multibody formulations and interface force coupling remain largely unexplored. Here, a stepwise hybrid testing framework is presented in which the equations of motion are formulated using Kane’s method, enabling a systematic treatment of multibody dynamics within hybrid testing. Interface forces are identified from free-body diagrams and incorporated into the equations of motion through the principle of virtual power, allowing consistent coupling between numerical and physical substructures. The framework is demonstrated in a pseudo-dynamic hybrid test of a 13-degree-of-freedom simplified wind turbine rotor system, where a pitch bearing is tested as a physical substructure under force-controlled bi-axial bending and displacement-controlled pitch rotation. A virtual hybrid test validates the formulation and coordination algorithm, while the physical hybrid test demonstrates stable mixed-mode coupling under experimental feedback. The results show that the framework can couple a Kane-based multibody model with a physical wind turbine component and capture its influence on the system-level rotor response.