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Title: A HPC “Cyber Wind Facility” Incorporating Fully-Coupled CFD/CSD for Turbine-Platform-Wake Interactions with the Atmosphere and Ocean

Abstract

The central aims of the DOE-supported “Cyber Wind Facility” project center on the recognition that wind turbines over land and ocean generate power from atmospheric winds that are inherently turbulent and strongly varying, both spatially over the rotor disk and in temporally as the rotating blades pass through atmospheric eddies embedded within the mean wind. The daytime unstable atmospheric boundary layer (ABL) is particularly variable in space time as solar heating generates buoyancy-driven motions that interact with strong mean shear in the ABL “surface layer,” the lowest 200 - 300 m where wind turbines reside in farms. With the “Cyber Wind Facility” (CWF) program we initiate a research and technology direction in which “cyber data” are generated from “computational experiments” within a “facility” akin to a wind tunnel, but with true space-time atmospheric turbulence that drive utility-scale wind turbines at full-scale Reynolds numbers. With DOE support we generated the key “modules” within a computational framework to create a first generation Cyber Wind Facility (CWF) for single wind turbines in the daytime ABL---both over land where the ABL globally unstable and over water with closer-to-neutral atmospheric conditions but with time response strongly affected by wave-induced forcing of the wind turbine platformmore » (here a buoy configuration). The CWF program has significantly improved the accuracy of actuator line models, evaluated with the Cyber Wind Facility in full blade-boundary-layer-resolved mode. The application of the CWF made in this program showed the existence of important ramp-like response events that likely contribute to bearing fatigue failure on the main shaft and that the advanced ALM method developed here captures the primary nonsteady response characteristics. Long-time analysis uncovered distinctive key dynamics that explain primary mechanisms that underlie potentially deleterious load transients. We also showed that blade bend-twist coupling plays a central role in the elastic responses of the blades to atmospheric turbulence, impacting turbine power.« less

Authors:
 [1]
  1. Univ. of Colorado, Boulder, CO (United States)
Publication Date:
Research Org.:
Pennsylvania State Univ., University Park, PA (United States)
Sponsoring Org.:
USDOE Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE), Wind and Water Technologies Office (EE-4W)
OSTI Identifier:
1355906
Report Number(s):
DOE-PennState-EE0005481
DOE Contract Number:  
EE0005481
Resource Type:
Technical Report
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English
Subject:
17 WIND ENERGY; 97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING; Wind; Wind Energy; Wind Turbine; Wind Farm; Atmospheric Boundary Layer; Turbulence; Aerodynamics; CFD; Actuator Line; Blade

Citation Formats

Brasseur, James G. A HPC “Cyber Wind Facility” Incorporating Fully-Coupled CFD/CSD for Turbine-Platform-Wake Interactions with the Atmosphere and Ocean. United States: N. p., 2017. Web. doi:10.2172/1355906.
Brasseur, James G. A HPC “Cyber Wind Facility” Incorporating Fully-Coupled CFD/CSD for Turbine-Platform-Wake Interactions with the Atmosphere and Ocean. United States. https://doi.org/10.2172/1355906
Brasseur, James G. 2017. "A HPC “Cyber Wind Facility” Incorporating Fully-Coupled CFD/CSD for Turbine-Platform-Wake Interactions with the Atmosphere and Ocean". United States. https://doi.org/10.2172/1355906. https://www.osti.gov/servlets/purl/1355906.
@article{osti_1355906,
title = {A HPC “Cyber Wind Facility” Incorporating Fully-Coupled CFD/CSD for Turbine-Platform-Wake Interactions with the Atmosphere and Ocean},
author = {Brasseur, James G.},
abstractNote = {The central aims of the DOE-supported “Cyber Wind Facility” project center on the recognition that wind turbines over land and ocean generate power from atmospheric winds that are inherently turbulent and strongly varying, both spatially over the rotor disk and in temporally as the rotating blades pass through atmospheric eddies embedded within the mean wind. The daytime unstable atmospheric boundary layer (ABL) is particularly variable in space time as solar heating generates buoyancy-driven motions that interact with strong mean shear in the ABL “surface layer,” the lowest 200 - 300 m where wind turbines reside in farms. With the “Cyber Wind Facility” (CWF) program we initiate a research and technology direction in which “cyber data” are generated from “computational experiments” within a “facility” akin to a wind tunnel, but with true space-time atmospheric turbulence that drive utility-scale wind turbines at full-scale Reynolds numbers. With DOE support we generated the key “modules” within a computational framework to create a first generation Cyber Wind Facility (CWF) for single wind turbines in the daytime ABL---both over land where the ABL globally unstable and over water with closer-to-neutral atmospheric conditions but with time response strongly affected by wave-induced forcing of the wind turbine platform (here a buoy configuration). The CWF program has significantly improved the accuracy of actuator line models, evaluated with the Cyber Wind Facility in full blade-boundary-layer-resolved mode. The application of the CWF made in this program showed the existence of important ramp-like response events that likely contribute to bearing fatigue failure on the main shaft and that the advanced ALM method developed here captures the primary nonsteady response characteristics. Long-time analysis uncovered distinctive key dynamics that explain primary mechanisms that underlie potentially deleterious load transients. We also showed that blade bend-twist coupling plays a central role in the elastic responses of the blades to atmospheric turbulence, impacting turbine power.},
doi = {10.2172/1355906},
url = {https://www.osti.gov/biblio/1355906}, journal = {},
number = ,
volume = ,
place = {United States},
year = {Tue May 09 00:00:00 EDT 2017},
month = {Tue May 09 00:00:00 EDT 2017}
}