The inverse design of the wind turbine blade sections by the singularities method

The aerodynamic characteristics of wind turbines are closely related to the geometry of their blades. The innovation and the technological development of wind turbine blades can be centred on two tendencies. The first is to improve the shape of existing blades; the second is to design new shapes of blades. The aspiration in the two cases is to achieve an optimal circulation and hence enhancing some more ambitious aerodynamic characteristics. This paper presents an inverse design procedure, which can be adapted to both thin and thick wind turbine blade sections aiming to optimise the geometry for a prescribed distribution of bound vortices. A method for simulating the initial contour of the blade section is exposed, which simultaneously satisfy the aerodynamic and geometrical constraints under nominal conditions. A detailed definition of the function characterising the bound vortex distribution is presented. The inviscid velocity field and potential function distributions are obtained by the singularities method. In the design method implemented, these distributions and the circulation of bound vortices on the camber line of the blade profile, are used to rectify its camber in an iterative calculation leading to the final and optimal form of the blade section once convergence is attained. The scheme proposed has been used to design the entire blade of the wind turbine for a given span-wise distribution of bound circulation around the blade contour.     

风电叶片固有频率相关性分析新方法

为进行三维风电叶片振动系统固有频率相关性分析,采用MATLAB和ANSYS共同建立了风电叶片三维有限元参数模型,并分析了叶片固有振动特性.考虑系统随机结构参数对风电叶片固有振动的影响,运用将Monte Carlo与ANSYS相结合的方法对叶片固有振动特性进行相关性分析,进而判断其对随机结构参数的敏感性,形成了一种叶片结...     

Aeroelastic analysis of a wind turbine blade using the harmonic balance method

An aeroelastic model for wind turbine blades derived from the unsteady Navier‐Stokes equations and a mode shape–based structural dynamics model are presented. For turbulent flows, the system is closed with the Spalart‐Allmaras turbulence model. The computation times for the aerodynamic solution are significantly reduced using the harmonic balance method compared to a time‐accurate solution. This model is significantly more robust than standard aeroelastic codes that rely on blade element momentum theory to determine the aerodynamic forces. Comparisons with published results for the Caradonna‐Tung rotor in hover and the classical AGARD 445.6 flutter case are provided to validate the aerodynamic model and aeroelastic model, respectively. For wind turbines, flutter of the 1.5 MW WindPACT blade is considered. The results predict that the first flapwise and edgewise modes dominate flutter at the rotor speeds considered.     

Development of an aeroelastic code based on three‐dimensional viscous–inviscid method for wind turbine computations

Aerodynamic and structural dynamic performance analysis of modern wind turbines are routinely estimated in the wind energy field using computational tools known as aeroelastic codes. Most aeroelastic codes use the blade element momentum (BEM) technique to model the rotor aerodynamics and a modal, multi‐body or the finite‐element approach to model the turbine structural dynamics. The present work describes the development of a novel aeroelastic code that combines a three‐dimensional viscous–inviscid interactive method, method for interactive rotor aerodynamic simulations (MIRAS), with the structural dynamics model used in the aeroelastic code FLEX5. The new code, called MIRAS‐FLEX, is an improvement on standard aeroelastic codes because it uses a more advanced aerodynamic model than BEM. With the new aeroelastic code, more physical aerodynamic predictions than BEM can be obtained as BEM uses empirical relations, such as tip loss corrections, to determine the flow around a rotor. Although more costly than BEM, a small cluster is sufficient to run MIRAS‐FLEX in a fast and easy way. MIRAS‐FLEX is compared against the widely used FLEX5 and FAST, as well as the participant codes from the Offshore Code Comparison Collaboration Project. Simulation tests consist of steady wind inflow conditions with different combinations of yaw error, wind shear, tower shadow and turbine‐elastic modeling. Turbulent inflow created by using a Mann box is also considered. MIRAS‐FLEX results, such as blade tip deflections and root‐bending moments, are generally in good agreement with the other codes. Copyright © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Development of fatigue life prediction method and effect of 10-minute mean wind speed distribution on fatigue life of small wind turbine composite blade

This study aims to develop a fatigue life prediction method and to identify the effect that a 10-minute mean wind speed distribution has on the fatigue life of a small-scale wind turbine composite blade. First, combining the von Karman isotropic turbulence model and the Weibull distribution for a 10-minute mean wind speed provided us with the 1-Hz full wind history for a specific time period. Accordingly, the fatigue stress spectra at the blade's fatigue-critical locations (FCLs) were created by applying a stress tensor, in which the interaction between flapwise and edgewise bending moments was taken into consideration. The fatigue life of a composite blade can be predicted with a reliability R = 95% by applying the P–S–N curve obtained from the constant amplitude fatigue tests and rainflow cycle counting, and cumulative damage rule to the fatigue stress spectra. To acquire the second-order regression equation, nonlinear regression analysis was performed on the fatigue lives, which were simulated by using the proposed fatigue life prediction method. In this equation, the variables were the shape parameter, K, and the scale parameter, C, of the Weibull distribution for a 10-minute mean wind speed. The effects of the Weibull parameters on fatigue life were evaluated through the sensitivity analysis of the equations.     

Probability strength design of steam turbine blade and sensitivity analysis with respect to random parameters based on response surface method

Many stochastic parameters have an effect on the reliability of a steam turbine blade during practical operation. To improve the reliability of blade design, it is necessary to take these stochastic parameters into account. An equal cross-section blade is investigated and a finite element model is built parametrically. Geometrical parameters, material parameters and load parameters of the blade are considered as input random variables while the maximum deflection and maximum equivalent stress are output random variables. Analysis file of the blade is compiled by deterministic finite element method and applied to be loop file to create sample points. A quadratic polynomial with cross terms is chosen to regress these samples by step-forward regression method and employed as a surrogate of numerical solver to drastically reduce the number of solvers call. Then, Monte Carlo method is used to obtain the statistical characteristics and cumulative distribution function of the maximum deflection and maximum equivalent stress of the blade. Probability sensitivity analysis, which combines the slope of the gradient and the width of the scatter range of the random input variables, is applied to evaluate how much the output parameters are influenced by the random input parameters. The scatter plots of structural responses with respect to the random input variables are illustrated to analyze how to change the input random variables to improve the reliability of the blade. The results show that combination of the finite element method, the response surface method and Monte Carlo method is an ideal way for the reliability analysis and probability strength design of the blade. __________ Translated from Proceedings of the CSEE, 2007, 27(20): 12–17 [译自: 中国电机工程学报]     

基于工况细化条件下数据统计分析的风电机组齿轮箱油温故障预警方法

文章针对风电机组齿轮箱油温劣化特征识别问题,提出了一种基于工况细化的异常变化检测和故障早期预警方法.该方法根据风机叶轮转速将机组运行数据进行细化分仓,在每个叶轮转速仓中建立基于概率统计分析的齿轮箱油温正常行为模型并设定其温度分布和温升变化的异常阈值;然后对现场机组齿轮箱油温变化进行监测,利用时序滑动窗口的评估方式实现风...     

Identification of vulnerable lines in power grids with wind power integration based on a weighted entropy analysis method

Vulnerable overhead electricity lines are a cause of serious risk to power distribution grids as damage can be the cause of large scale blackouts and cascading failures. With the integration of large scale wind power into generating capacity, both the topology structure and the distribution characteristics of power flow in distribution grid have undergone various changes that have increased line vulnerability. A novel approach to identify vulnerable lines based on the weighted entropy analysis method is proposed in this paper. In this approach, an assessment index, named the incremental power flow entropy, is first developed, which is used to describe influences caused by variation of the lines' capability of carrying power flow transfers on the vulnerability of the lines themselves at the same aggregation level. A second assessment index, named structural importance, describes the structural changes of a power grid that are caused by the integration of wind-generated electric power. The two assessment indices then are merged into one index by using the entropy weight analysis method, which can assess the vulnerability of the lines from the two aspects of power flow transmission and structural links. Vulnerability analysis under different situations, such as with and without the integration of the wind farm, and sharp fluctuations in wind speed at the wind farm, were carried out on an IEEE 39-bus system integrated with a 75 MW wind farm. Simulation results verified that the proposed assessment index not only can identify the vulnerable lines in a power grid with wind farm integration but also accurately reflected the vulnerability of the internal lines of the wind farm itself.     

基于双电池不平衡状态优化的风功率平滑控制

在双电池平滑风功率过程中,改善双电池充放电不平衡状态可以提高充放电深度,减少充放电状态切换次数.文章分析了双电池风功率平滑系统的充放电不平衡状态及其产生的原因,提出了一种改进控制策略,该策略可根据双电池荷电状态调整风功率平抑目标功率,以此改善双电池不平衡状态.基于Matlab/Simulink分析了风速湍流强度以及风功...     

Numerical simulations of two-phase flow in a proton-exchange membrane fuel cell based on the generalized design method

The water management of proton-exchange membrane fuel cell (PEMFC) has a major impact on the performance of the cell system. In order to investigate the influence of air velocity and wettability on the whole process during penetration of liquid water, a generalized two-dimensional model in conjunction with the volume of fluid (VOF) method was used to simulate the whole processes from gas diffusion layer (GDL) to gas channel (GC). The results show that the wettability of the medium plays a significant role than flow rate for the penetration of liquid water in the GDL. It is shown that favorable hydrophobicity and high air velocity in GC is helpful to remove liquid droplets on the GDL surface. By contrast, the stable droplets spacing on GDL surface is more concentrated and the percentage of liquid area is more extensive under the hydrophilic and low-velocity case, which would aggravate the liquid water and hard to remove from the GDL surface.     

A novel decentralized method based on the system engineering concept for reliability‐security constraint unit commitment in restructured power environment

In the deregulated power environment, including Central operator (CO) and Micro Grids (MGs), different parts of the network are dedicated to the private sector, and each of them seeks to increase their profits independently. The CO and MGs should cooperate and collaborate in terms of operating, security and reliability in the whole power system. This article proposes a new method based on a System of System (SoS) concept for the secure and economic hourly generation scheduling to find optimal operational point. The main methodology includes three steps. In the first step, the power system is divided into several subsystems by using a spectral clustering partitioning technique to reduce converge time by decentralizes methods. And also load forecasting based on a Gaussian probability distribution function to avoid conventional calculation and considering uncertainty of the loads has been presented. To find a similar scenario, and reduction scenario with low probability, the probabilistic method has been addressed. The main contribution of this method is removing scenarios with low value of probabilities and scenarios which are similar to each other. In fact, the reduced set must include scenarios which are scattered appropriately in the uncertain space while holding high probabilities. In order to estimate the similarity (distance) between two scenarios the Kantorovich distance is implemented. In the second step, the hierarchical Bi‐level optimization approach is used to execute the decentralized decision making to solve the Security Constraints Unit Commitment (SCUC) problem between CO and MGs. Regarding all physical relations and shared data among CO and MGs, the SoS concept and Bi‐level optimization are presented to find the optimal operating point of autonomous systems. In the third step, a random number of generators will be select. Hence, the initial iteration number is set. In this step, sampling from state space to classifying reliability object achieved (The expected energy not supplied and loss of load probability are the reliability criterion). The presented method is evaluated using a 6‐bus, the RTS 24‐bus, 118‐bus, and 4672‐bus as an IEEE test systems. The suggested structure has been implemented by GAMS, and the results illustrate the usefulness of the presented methodology. To comparing proposed approach with the centralized method, the results illustrate improving total operational costs and security (in RTS‐24($603,209), 118 bus ($2 562 154) and 4672‐bus ($9 185 168)) in scenario 3 near to 9%, 10% and 8% respectively. Similarly, by comparison (in three test systems) with genetic algorithm these improvements are near to 23%, 22% and 13% respectively.