Modeling the response of wind turbines to atmospheric turbulence

Technical Report · Sat Aug 01 04:00:00 EDT 1981

DOI:https://doi.org/10.2172/6811573· OSTI ID:6811573

Thresher, R. W.; Holley, W. E.; Smith, C. E.; Jafarey, N.; Lin, S. R.

Methods are developed for modeling the dynamic response of horizontal axis wind turbines to atmospheric turbulence. The dynamic system is made as simple as possible, while still retaining essential physical characteristics. The report describes how to model a turbine system using the 5 degrees-of-freedom to represent the lower frequency motions of the turbine system. The rotor is assumed to be rigid and is three-bladed for simplicity. Both the structural dynamic properties for this system and the aerodynamic influence coefficients which determine how the system will respond to atmospheric turbulence are developed. Two different wake models are used to compute the induced velocities at the rotor disk. The reader is introduced to the basic concepts involved in modeling the turbulent fluctuations of the wind. Using an approximation concept, the spatial variations of the turbulence are modeled with the first few terms of a series expansion. In addition, this report covers the use of filtered noise as a modeling approximation for the turbulence input and provides the necessary data for modeling the turbulence inputs for a wide range of turbine sizes. Finally, the governing equations for the turbine system and the turbulence inputs are combined to yield a state space description of the entire system. It is shown how decoupling of these equations allows power spectral densities of the various turbine responses to be computed. The computer program used to perform these computations is also discussed and listed.

• Research Organization: Oregon State Univ., Corvallis (USA). Dept. of Mechanical Engineering
• DOE Contract Number: AT06-79ET23144
• OSTI ID: 6811573
• Report Number(s): DOE/ET/23144-81/2; ON: DE83000334
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

17 WIND ENERGY
170602* -- Wind Energy Engineering-- Turbine Design & Operation
AERODYNAMICS
COMPUTER CODES
DYNAMIC LOADS
FINITE ELEMENT METHOD
FLUID MECHANICS
MACHINERY
MATHEMATICAL MODELS
MECHANICAL STRUCTURES
MECHANICAL VIBRATIONS
MECHANICS
NOISE
NUMERICAL SOLUTION
R CODES
TOWERS
TURBINES
TURBOMACHINERY
TURBULENCE
WIND
WIND TURBINES