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A generalized wind turbine cross section as a reduced-order model to gain insights in blade aeroelastic challenges

Journal Article · · Journal of Physics. Conference Series
 [1];  [2];  [3];  [2];  [4];  [4];  [4];  [4]
  1. Univ. of Massachusetts, Amherst, MA (United States)
  2. National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), Golden, CO (United States)
  3. Rice Univ., Houston, TX (United States)
  4. Envision Energy, Boulder, CO (United States)
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In this work, we present an approach to study the aeroelastic stability of a wind turbine by focusing on the dynamics of a blade cross section. We present a methodology to obtain a reduced-order model of the blade dynamics in the form of generalized cross-sectional quantities that approximates the aerodynamic and structural properties of the full blade. The motivation for the work is to gain a physical understanding of the influence of aerodynamic models such as dynamic wake and dynamic stall on the frequency and damping of the structure using a reduced-order model with low computational cost. The model may be coupled to two-dimensional computational fluid dynamics softwares or engineering unsteady airfoil aerodynamics models accounting for dynamic wake and dynamic stall. In the latter case, we can obtain monolithic state-space forms of the aeroelastic system of equations, which simplifies the determination of the modal parameters and therefore the study of stability. The work investigates wind turbines in operation or at standstill, where vortex-induced vibrations and stall-induced vibrations, respectively, might be an issue. The implementation is made available as part of the open-source Python package WELIB and as part of the open-source unsteady aerodynamic driver of OpenFAST.

Research Organization:
National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), Golden, CO (United States)
Sponsoring Organization:
USDOE Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE), Renewable Power Office. Wind Energy Technologies Office
Grant/Contract Number:
AC36-08GO28308
OSTI ID:
2395892
Report Number(s):
NREL/JA--5000-88163; MainId:88938; UUID:cd328d48-eb91-4526-a4d3-44b6024efbab; MainAdminId:72260
Journal Information:
Journal of Physics. Conference Series, Journal Name: Journal of Physics. Conference Series Journal Issue: 2 Vol. 2767; ISSN 1742-6588
Publisher:
IOP PublishingCopyright Statement
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English

References (8)

welib software June 2023
Aeroelastic stability analysis of wind turbines using an eigenvalue approach journal April 2004
A parametric study of coupled-mode flutter for MW-size wind turbine blades: Coupled-mode flutter of MW-size wind turbine blades journal May 2015
Flexible multibody dynamics using joint coordinates and the Rayleigh‐Ritz approximation: The general framework behind and beyond Flex journal April 2019
Aeroelastic instability problems for wind turbines journal January 2007
Periodic stability analysis of wind turbines operating in turbulent wind conditions journal January 2016
A symbolic framework to obtain mid-fidelity models of flexible multibody systems with application to horizontal-axis wind turbines journal December 2022
Forced-motion simulations of vortex-induced vibrations of wind turbine blades – a study of sensitivities journal October 2023

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Related Subjects

17 WIND ENERGY
aeroelasticity
airfoil
stability
unsteady aerodynamics