Vortex Shedding and Frequency Lock in on Stand Still Wind Turbines—A Baseline Experiment

2018 ◽  
Vol 140 (11) ◽  
Author(s):  
Matthew Lennie ◽  
Alireza Selahi-Moghaddam ◽  
David Holst ◽  
George Pechlivanoglou ◽  
Christian Navid Nayeri ◽  
...  

During the commissioning and stand-still cycles of wind turbines, the rotor is often stopped or even locked leaving the rotor blades at a standstill. When the blades are at a standstill, angles of attack on the blades can be very high, and it is therefore possible that they experience vortex-induced vibrations. This experiment and analysis helps to explain the different regimes of flow at very high angles of attack, particularly on moderately twisted and tapered blades. A single blade was tested at two different flow velocities at a range of angles of attack with flow tuft visualization and hotwire measurements of the wake. Hotwire wake measurements were able to show the gradual inception and ending of certain flow regimes. The power spectral densities of these measurements were normalized in terms of Strouhal number based on the projected chord to show that certain wake features have a relatively constant Strouhal number. The shedding frequency appears then to be relatively independent of chord taper and twist. Vortex generators (VGs) were tested but were found to have little influence in this case. Gurney flaps were found to modify the wake geometry, stall onset angles, and in some cases the shedding frequency.

Author(s):  
Matthew Lennie ◽  
Alireza Selahi-Moghaddam ◽  
David Holst ◽  
Georgios Pechlivanoglou ◽  
Christian Navid Nayeri ◽  
...  

During the commissioning and stand-still cycles of wind turbines, the rotor is often stopped or even locked leaving the rotor blades at a standstill. When the blades are at a stand still, angles of attack on the blades can be very high and it is therefore possible that they experience vortex induced vibrations. This experiment and analysis helps to explain the different regimes of flow at very high angles of attack, particularly on moderately twisted and tapered blades. A single blade was tested at two different flow velocities at a range of angles of attack with flow tuft visualisation and hotwire measurements of the wake. Hotwire wake measurements were able to show the gradual inception and ending of certain flow regimes. The power spectral densities of these measurements were normalized in terms of Strouhal number based on the projected chord to show that certain wake features have a relatively constant Strouhal number. The shedding frequency appears then to be relatively independent of chord taper and twist. Vortex generators were tested but were found to have little influence in this case. Gurney flaps were found to modify the wake geometry, stall onset angles and in some cases the shedding frequency.


2015 ◽  
Vol 138 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Fanny M. Besem ◽  
Joshua D. Kamrass ◽  
Jeffrey P. Thomas ◽  
Deman Tang ◽  
Robert E. Kielb

Vortex-induced vibration is a fluid instability where vortices due to secondary flows exert a periodic unsteady force on the elastic structure. Under certain circumstances, the shedding frequency can lock into the structure natural frequency and lead to limit cycle oscillations. These vibrations may cause material fatigue and are a common source of structural failure. This work uses a frequency domain, harmonic balance (HB) computational fluid dynamics (CFD) code to predict the natural shedding frequency and lock-in region of an airfoil at very high angles of attack. The numerical results are then successfully compared to experimental data from wind tunnel testings.


Author(s):  
Mandar Tabib ◽  
Adil Rasheed ◽  
Franz Georg Fuchs

Flows around a fixed cylinder with uniform and pulsating inflow conditions at different Reynolds numbers are simulated using Large Eddy Simulation (LES). For pulsating inflow, a sinusoidal profile, with an amplitude ΔU and a pulsation frequency fe, is superimposed onto the mean velocity U∞ at the inlet plane. The current study reveals that the pulsation can influence flow-physics in three possible ways as compared to uniform inflow conditions: (a) The vortex shedding pattern is seen to be more asymmetric for pulsating inflow than for uniform inflow. This needs to be validated with an experimental campaign devoted to the study of flow-asymmetricity due to pulsatile and uniform flow condition. (b) The dominant shedding frequency fd gets locked with respect to the frequency of the pulsating inflow fe, (for both the turbulent and transition regime) at a ratio of fe/fs0 equivalent to 0.65 – 0.75 (where fs0 is the vortex shedding frequency for uniform inflow) and ε = ΔU / (2πfeD) ≈ 0.2, where D is the diameter of the cylinder. This numerical observation is validated using the experimentally observed turbulent vortex regime work ( [1])in this range. For conditions with fe/fs0 > 0.75 the lock-in may happen at fe/2. (c) Compared to uniform inflow, the pulsating inflow leads to a larger drag coefficient. The drag coefficient is influenced by the ratios fe/fs0 and ΔU / U∞.


Author(s):  
Fanny M. Besem ◽  
Joshua D. Kamrass ◽  
Jeffrey P. Thomas ◽  
Deman Tang ◽  
Robert E. Kielb

Vortex-induced vibration is a fluid instability present in many areas, including offshore platforms, wind turbines, and turbomachinery. The vortices due to secondary flows exert an periodic unsteady force on the elastic structure, leading to potentially dangerous vibrations. Under certain circumstances, the shedding frequency can lock into the structure natural frequency and lead to limit cycle oscillations. These high amplitude vibrations can cause material fatigue, and are a common source of structural failure. This work uses a frequency domain, harmonic balance, CFD code to predict the lock-in of an airfoil at very high angles of attack. The natural shedding frequency is found using a delta phase per iteration method, and the lock-in region is identified by enforcing airfoil motion at different oscillation amplitudes and frequencies. The numerical results are successfully compared to experimental data from wind tunnel testing on a NACA0012 airfoil at deep stall conditions.


1984 ◽  
Vol 106 (1) ◽  
pp. 70-78 ◽  
Author(s):  
A. J. Grass ◽  
P. W. J. Raven ◽  
R. J. Stuart ◽  
J. A. Bray

The paper summarizes the results of a laboratory study of the separate and combined effects of bed proximity and large velocity gradients on the frequency of vortex shedding from pipeline spans immersed in the thick boundary layers of tidal currents. This investigation forms part of a wider project concerned with the assessment of span stability. The measurements show that in the case of both sheared and uniform approach flows, with and without velocity gradients, respectively, the Strouhal number defining the vortex shedding frequency progressively increases as the gap between the pipe base and the bed is reduced below two pipe diameters. The maximum increase in vortex shedding Strouhal number, recorded close to the bed in an approach flow with large velocity gradients, was of the order of 25 percent.


Author(s):  
Remi Bourguet ◽  
Michael S. Triantafyllou ◽  
Michael Tognarelli ◽  
Pierre Beynet

The fluid-structure energy transfer of a tensioned beam of length to diameter ratio 200, subject to vortex-induced vibrations in linear shear flow, is investigated by means of direct numerical simulation at three Reynolds numbers, from 110 to 1,100. In both the in-line and cross-flow directions, the high-wavenumber structural responses are characterized by mixed standing-traveling wave patterns. The spanwise zones where the flow provides energy to excite the structural vibrations are located mainly within the region of high current where the lock-in condition is established, i.e. where vortex shedding and cross-flow vibration frequencies coincide. However, the energy input is not uniform across the entire lock-in region. This can be related to observed changes from counterclockwise to clockwise structural orbits. The energy transfer is also impacted by the possible occurrence of multi-frequency vibrations.


Author(s):  
C. Le Cunff ◽  
E. Fontaine ◽  
F. Biolley

Fatigue due to environmental conditions is studied on a top-tensioned riser. The fatigue is due to two factors. First, the waves produce a displacement of the top of the riser, which excites the structure. Secondly, currents create vortices behind the structures. The phenomenon is then referred to as vortex-induced vibrations (VIV), whereby the vortices can lock onto a structural mode through the shedding frequency. In the present paper, we have two objectives. The first is to compare the fatigue estimates given either by a modal analysis or by Navier-Stokes calculations for a riser in a current. The second is to determine if studying the wave and current effects separately produces conservative results or if they must be studied together.


Author(s):  
Andrew E. Potts ◽  
Douglas A. Potts ◽  
Hayden Marcollo ◽  
Kanishka Jayasinghe

The prediction of Vortex-Induced Vibration (VIV) of cylinders under fluid flow conditions depends upon the eddy shedding frequency, conventionally described by the Strouhal Number. The most commonly cited relationship between Strouhal Number and Reynolds Number for circular cylinders was developed by Lienhard [1], whereby the Strouhal Number exhibits a consistent narrow band of about 0.2 (conventional across the sub-critical Re range), with a pronounced hump peaking at about 0.5 within the critical flow regime. The source data underlying this relationship is re-examined, wherein it was found to be predominantly associated with eddy shedding frequency about fixed or stationary cylinders. The pronounced hump appears to be an artefact of the measurement techniques employed by various investigators to detect eddy-shedding frequency in the wake of the cylinder. A variety of contemporary test data for elastically mounted cylinders, with freedom to oscillate under one degree of freedom (i.e. cross flow) and two degrees of freedom (i.e. cross flow and in-line) were evaluated and compared against the conventional Strouhal Number relationship. It is well established for VIV that the eddy shedding frequency will synchronise with the near resonant motions of a dynamically oscillating cylinder, such that the resultant bandwidth of lock-in exhibits a wider range of effective Strouhal Numbers than that reflected in the narrow-banded relationship about a mean of 0.2. However, whilst cylinders oscillating under one degree of freedom exhibit a mean Strouhal Number of 0.2 consistent with fixed/stationary cylinders, cylinders with two degrees of freedom exhibit a much lower mean Strouhal Number of around 0.14–0.15. Data supports the relationship that Strouhal Number does slightly diminish with increasing Reynolds Number. For oscillating cylinders, the bandwidth about the mean Strouhal Number value appears to remain largely consistent. For many practical structures in the marine environment subject to VIV excitation, such as long span, slender risers, mooring lines, pipeline spans, towed array sonar strings, and alike, the long flexible cylinders will respond in two degrees of freedom, where the identified difference in Strouhal Number is a significant aspect to be accounted for in the modelling of its dynamic behaviour.


2011 ◽  
Vol 677 ◽  
pp. 342-382 ◽  
Author(s):  
REMI BOURGUET ◽  
GEORGE E. KARNIADAKIS ◽  
MICHAEL S. TRIANTAFYLLOU

We investigate the in-line and cross-flow vortex-induced vibrations of a long cylindrical tensioned beam, with length to diameter ratio L/D = 200, placed within a linearly sheared oncoming flow, using three-dimensional direct numerical simulation. The study is conducted at three Reynolds numbers, from 110 to 1100 based on maximum velocity, so as to include the transition to turbulence in the wake. The selected tension and bending stiffness lead to high-wavenumber vibrations, similar to those encountered in long ocean structures. The resulting vortex-induced vibrations consist of a mixture of standing and travelling wave patterns in both the in-line and cross-flow directions; the travelling wave component is preferentially oriented from high to low velocity regions. The in-line and cross-flow vibrations have a frequency ratio approximately equal to 2. Lock-in, the phenomenon of self-excited vibrations accompanied by synchronization between the vortex shedding and cross-flow vibration frequencies, occurs in the high-velocity region, extending across 30% or more of the beam length. The occurrence of lock-in disrupts the spanwise regularity of the cellular patterns observed in the wake of stationary cylinders in shear flow. The wake exhibits an oblique vortex shedding pattern, inclined in the direction of the travelling wave component of the cylinder vibrations. Vortex splittings occur between spanwise cells of constant vortex shedding frequency. The flow excites the cylinder under the lock-in condition with a preferential in-line versus cross-flow motion phase difference corresponding to counter-clockwise, figure-eight orbits; but it damps cylinder vibrations in the non-lock-in region. Both mono-frequency and multi-frequency responses may be excited. In the case of multi-frequency response and within the lock-in region, the wake can lock in to different frequencies at various spanwise locations; however, lock-in is a locally mono-frequency event, and hence the flow supplies energy to the structure mainly at the local lock-in frequency.


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