The size of wind turbines has been growing fast in recent years with the largest now exceeding 7MW. Furthermore, this trend is expected to continue for the offshore sector. However, this increase in size is accompanied by an increase in the dynamic loading on the structure, in particular, unbalanced loads on the blade and hub. Apart from making wind turbine components more load tolerant, e.g. t...

In this study, aeroelastic response and performance analyses have been conducted for a 5MW-Class composite wind turbine blade model. Advanced coupled numerical method based on computational fluid dynamics (CFD) and computational flexible multi-body dynamics (CFMBD) has been developed in order to investigate aeroelastic responses and performance characteristics of the rotating composite blade. R...

An inverse design process is applied to determine blade shapes used in vertical axis wind turbines (VAWTs). The method is based on the modified Garabedian-McFadden technique that uses the deviation of the pressure distribution or the velocity distribution on the surface from a target pressure or velocity distribution, and modifies the blade surface in order to reduce this deviation. The method ...

This paper presents the aerodynamic design of low noise wind turbine blades using Betz and Joukowski concepts. The aerodynamic model is based on Blade Element Momentum theory whereas the aeroacoustic prediction model is based on the BPM model. The investigation is started with a 3MW baseline/reference turbine rotor with a diameter of 80 m. To reduce the noise emission from the baseline rotor, t...

Strong gusts negatively affect wind turbines in many ways. They (1) harm their structural safety; (2) reduce their wind energy output; and (3) lead to a shorter wind turbine rotor blade fatigue life. Therefore, the goal of this study was to provide a global assessment of the gust climate, considering its influence on wind turbines. The gust characteristics analyzed were: (1) the gust speed retu...

Vertical axis wind turbine blades undergo dynamic stall due to the large 1 angle of attack variation they experience during a turbine rotation. Particle image 2 velocimetry on a pitching and surging airfoil was used to perform time resolved 3 measurements at blade Reynolds numbers near turbine operating conditions of 105. 4 These experiments were compared to simulations performed in the rotatin...

In January 2017, a large wind turbine blade was installed temporarily in a city square as a public artwork. At first sight, media photographs of the installation appeared to be fakes - the blade looks like it could not really be part of the scene. Close inspection of the object shows that its paradoxical visual appearance can be attributed to unconscious assumptions about object shape and light...

The use of disturbance models in wind turbine individual pitch control design to attenuate effects of persistent disturbances is investigated. Previous work has used individual pitch control and disturbance models to design controllers that reduce the blade loads at the frequencies associated with the rotor speed. This paper takes a similar approach of using a disturbance model within the H∞ de...

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