Adaptive Geometry Wind Turbine Blades for Increasing Performance

Author(s):  
Leonardo C. Albanese ◽  
Farhan Gandhi ◽  
Susan W. Stewart

With wind turbines working to capture energy at different wind speeds rotor morphing could potentially increase energy capture over wind speeds up to the rated speed. This study examines what the optimal geometry might look like at different wind speeds, how it might differ from one speed to another, and how much increase in power and annual energy production could be realized with the optimal geometry at each wind speed. Using a blade-element theory based analysis and conducting simulations on the 1.5 MW WindPACT turbine and the 5MW NREL concept turbine, variations in blade twist and collective pitch, chord, radius, and airfoil characteristics were considered. The results indicate that there are negligible benefits to changing blade collective pitch, twist, chord, and airfoil characteristics. Only radius increase has a dominant effect, with 20% increase in radius resulting in power increase of over 45% at 8 and 10 m/s and much higher percentage increases at lower speeds, for both turbines. The increase in annual energy production is in the range of 20%. However, a larger radius increases rotor thrust.

Author(s):  
Timothy A. Burdett ◽  
Kenneth W. Van Treuren

Wind turbines are often designed using some form of Blade Element Model (BEM). However, different models can produce significantly different results when optimizing the angle of twist for power production. This paper compares the theoretical result of optimizing the angle of twist using Blade Element Theory (BET) and Blade Element Momentum Theory (BEMT) with a tip-loss correction for a 3-bladed, 1.15-m diameter wind turbine with a design tip speed ratio (TSR) of 5. These two theories have been chosen because they are readily available to small-scale designers. Additionally, the turbine was scaled for experimental testing in the Baylor Subsonic Wind Tunnel. Angle of twist distributions differed by as much as 15 degrees near the hub, and the coefficient of power differed as much as 0.08 for the wind speeds tested.


2012 ◽  
Vol 268-270 ◽  
pp. 1294-1298 ◽  
Author(s):  
Guang Hua Chen ◽  
De Tian ◽  
Ying Deng

With 3MW composite blade wind turbine blade as an example, according to the momentum blade element theory, optimized the design of aerodynamic shape, established the Three-dimensional model of blade through coordinate conversion, and made the stress check of structure and modal analysis using the finite element method, and more detailed description of the design methods and techniques of large composite wind turbine blades


2014 ◽  
pp. 49-55
Author(s):  
V. Diaz Casas ◽  
R. J. Duro ◽  
F. Lopez-Pena

An automatic design environment is implemented for the aerodynamic design of wind turbine blades. This tool involves the integration of evolutionary techniques and a simple, fast, and robust aerodynamic simulator which was developed for the prediction of the performance of any turbine blade produced by the evolutionary process. The aerodynamic simulator is based on blade element theory in which a panel method is combined with an integral boundary layer code to calculate the blade airfoils’ characteristics. In order to reduce computations some simplifications have been applied and the results corrected by means of the application of neural network based approximations. Results of the simulations obtained using this technique, of the application of the automatic design procedure and of the operation of the wind turbines thus obtained are presented.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alessio Castorrini ◽  
Paolo Venturini ◽  
Fabrizio Gerboni ◽  
Alessandro Corsini ◽  
Franco Rispoli

Abstract Rain erosion of wind turbine blades represents an interesting topic of study due to its non-negligible impact on annual energy production of the wind farms installed in rainy sites. A considerable amount of recent research works has been oriented to this subject, proposing rain erosion modelling, performance losses prediction, structural issues studies, etc. This work aims to present a new method to predict the damage on a wind turbine blade. The method is applied here to study the effect of different rain conditions and blade coating materials, on the damage produced by the rain over a representative section of a reference 5MW turbine blade operating in normal turbulence wind conditions.


Author(s):  
Alka Gupta ◽  
Abdulrahman Alsultan ◽  
R. S. Amano ◽  
Sourabh Kumar ◽  
Andrew D. Welsh

Energy is the heart of today’s civilization and the demand seems to be increasing with our growing population. Alternative energy solutions are the future of energy, whereas the fossil-based fuels are finite and deemed to become extinct. The design of the wind turbine blade is the main governing factor that affects power generation from the wind turbine. Different airfoils, angle of twist and blade dimensions are the parameters that control the efficiency of the wind turbine. This study is aimed at investigating the aerodynamic performance of the wind turbine blade. In the present paper, we discuss innovative blade designs using the NACA 4412 airfoil, comparing them with a straight swept blade. The wake region was measured in the lab with a straight blade. All the results with different designs of blades were compared for their performance. A complete three-dimensional computational analysis was carried out to compare the power generation in each case for different wind speeds. It was found from the numerical analysis that the slotted blade yielded the most power generation among the other blade designs.


2017 ◽  
Vol 11 (2) ◽  
pp. 2711-2722
Author(s):  
M.F. Yaakub ◽  
◽  
A.A. Wahab ◽  
A. Abdullah ◽  
N.A.R. Nik Mohd ◽  
...  

Sensors ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 20 (18) ◽  
pp. 5337
Author(s):  
Theresa Loss ◽  
Alexander Bergmann

Increasing the length of wind turbine blades for maximum energy capture leads to larger loads and forces acting on the blades. In particular, alternate bending due to gravity or nonuniform wind profiles leads to increased loads and imminent fatigue. Therefore, blade monitoring in operation is needed to optimise turbine settings and, consequently, to reduce alternate bending. In our approach, an acceleration model was used to analyse periodically occurring deviations from uniform bending. By using hierarchical clustering, significant bending patterns could be extracted and patterns were analysed with regard to reference data. In a simulation of alternate bending effects, various effects were successfully represented by different bending patterns. A real data experiment with accelerometers mounted at the blade tip of turbine blades demonstrated a clear relation between the rotation frequency and the resulting bending patterns. Additionally, the markedness of bending shapes could be used to assess the amount of alternate bending of the blade in both simulations and experiment.s The results demonstrate that model-based bending shapes provide a strong indication for alternate bending and, consequently, can be used to optimise turbine settings.


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