Sharif Digital Repository

Dynamic Neural network was used to minimize the amount of data required to predict the location of transition point on a 2-D oscillatory wing. For this purpose, various experimental tests were carried out on a section of a 660kw wind turbine blade. A multi layer non linear perceptrons network was trained using the output signals of four hot films attached on the upper surface of the model. Results show that using only 50% of the test data, the trained network was able to the transition point with an acceptable accuracy. Moreover, the method can predict the transition points at any position of the wing surface for different Reynolds numbers, amplitudes and initial angles of oscillation, and... 

A series of low speed wind tunnel tests on a section of a 660 Kw wind turbine blade which is under constructer were conducted to examine the effects of distributed surface contamination on its performance characteristics. At first model was tested in the clean condition and after that it was tested with tree different types of roughness. The data shows that this particular airfoil is very sensitive to the applied surface roughness. For the contaminated model the roughness, 0.5mm height was distributed over the entire upper surface of the airfoil such that the distribution pattern was denser in the vicinity of the leading edge and thinner in the trailing edge area. Statistical data show that... 

An extensive experimental study is conducted to investigate the effects of reduced frequency on a harmonically pitching wing where its cross section is used in a 660 kW wind turbine under construction in Iran. The corresponding lift coefficient and real time pressure signatures at three sections of the model at various reduced frequencies are examined. The test covers a wide range of angles of attack at prestall, stall, and deep stall regions. Pressure distributions at tip, middle, and root sections of the wing were recorded and from these distributions the lift coefficients are computed. The results show great role of the reduced frequency in altering the maximum lift coefficients, lift... 

A series of low speed wind tunnel tests on a section of a 660 Kw wind turbine blade were conducted to examine the effects of distributed surface contamination on its performance. The airfoil was a section of a wind turbine blade under construction. The performance of the section was measured in the following conditions: 1. Clean airfoil 2. Two types of zigzag roughness 3. Strip tape 4. Distributed contamination roughness Our preliminary data shows that the airfoil is very sensitive to the applied surface roughness. For the contamination model the roughness, 0.5mm height, is distributed over the entire upper surface of the airfoil. By putting the contamination roughness on the airfoil the... 

Extensive wind tunnel tests have been conducted to investigate effects of turbulence intensity variations on the behavior of a section of a wind turbine blade in an oscillatory motion. Special emphasize was applied on the aerodynamic characteristics when oscillating the model in the vicinity of its static stall angle of attack and in the post stall condition. The model had 0.25m chord and was pitched about its quarter-chord. Data were acquired at various Reynolds number, and reduced frequency. Results show that turbulent intensity has strong effect on the unsteady load coefficients, hence aerodynamic performance of this model. Furthermore, free stream turbulence has different effect on the... 

Effects of dielectric barrier discharge plasma have been studied on the wake velocity profiles of a section of a 660 kW wind turbine blade in plunging motion in a wind tunnel. The corresponding unsteady velocity profiles show remarkable improvement when the plasma actuators were operating and the angles of attack of the model were beyond the static stall angles of the airfoil. As a result the drag force was considerably reduced. It is further observed that the plasma-induced flow attenuates the leading edge vortices that are periodically shed into wake and diminishes the large eddies downstream. The favorable effects of the plasma augmentation are shown to occur near the uppermost and... 

Extensive experimental investigation was conducted to study the effect of leading-edge roughness on the state of the boundary layer of a wind turbine blade section. The application of surface grit roughness simulates surface irregularities that occur on the wind turbine blades. The measurements were done using multiple hot-film sensors and surface pressure transducers in both static and plunging oscillation of the airfoil. Frequency domain analysis was used to determine the state of the unsteady boundary layer  

A series of tests were carried out to study the unsteady wake behaviour behind an aerofoil which is a section of a wind-turbine blade. The model is oscillated in pitch about its quarter chord axis at various reduced frequencies, amplitudes, and mean angles-of-attack. Instantaneous and mean velocity profiles were obtained using total and static pressure at 35 vertically aligned points behind the aerofoil via two similar rakes. The rakes were located at a distance of 1.5 chord length behind the model. An estimation of the real time and average variations of the linear momentum deficit during the oscillation cycle is obtained and has been compared with the corresponding static data. The results... 

In this paper, the modal-based indices are used in damage identification of the wind turbine blade. In contrast of many of previous researches, the geometric nonlinearity due to the large structural deformation of the modern wind turbines blade is considered. In the first step, the finite element model (FEM) of the rotating blade is solved to obtain the modal features of the deformed structure under operational aerodynamic loading. Next, the accuracy and efficiency of the various modal-based damage indices including the frequency, mode shape, curvature of mode shape, modal assurance, modal strain energy (MSE) and the difference of indices (between the intact and damaged blades) are... 

Extensive experiments were conducted to study the effect of various parameters on the surface pressure distribution and transition point of an aerofoil section used in a wind turbine blade. In this paper details of the variation of transition point on the aforementioned aerofoil are presented. The aerofoil spanned the wind-tunnel test section and was oscillated sinusoidally in pitch about the quarter chord. The imposed variables of the experiments were free stream velocity, amplitude of motion, mean angle-of-attack, and oscillation frequency. The spatial-temporal progressions of the leading-edge transition point and the state of the unsteady boundary-layer were measured using eight... 

A series of unsteady low speed wind tunnel tests on a section of a 660 Kw wind turbine blade under construction were conducted to examine the effects of distributed surface contamination on its performance characteristics. Our data shows that the airfoil is very sensitive to the applied surface roughness. Results show that contamination decreases static maximum lift coefficient more than 40 percent. In the dynamic test this effect is the same and is about 38 percent. Contamination decreases the width of the dynamic diagrams loop such and leads to the smooth stall on the airfoil  

Wind turbine blade life prediction is the most important parameter to estimate the power generation cost. Due to the price and importance of wind blade, many experimental and theoretical methods were developed to estimate damages and blade life. A novel multiaxial fatigue damage model is suggested for the life prediction of a wind turbine blade. Fatigue reduction of fiber and interfiber characteristics are separately treated and simulated in this research. Damage behavior is considered in lamina level and then extended to laminate; hence, this model can be used for multidirectional laminated composites. The procedure of fatigue-induced degradation is implemented in an ABAQUS user material... 

Wind turbine blade life prediction is the most important parameter to estimate the power generation cost. Due to the price and importance of wind blade, many experimental and theoretical methods were developed to estimate damages and blade life. A novel multiaxial fatigue damage model is suggested for the life prediction of a wind turbine blade. Fatigue reduction of fiber and interfiber characteristics are separately treated and simulated in this research. Damage behavior is considered in lamina level and then extended to laminate; hence, this model can be used for multidirectional laminated composites. The procedure of fatigue-induced degradation is implemented in an ABAQUS user material... 

In this paper, the aeroelastic analysis of a large scale wind turbine rotor is performed with the aim of studying transient performance of turbine in extreme wind conditions, such as wind gusts and rapid yaw changes. The effect of the presence and/or lack of blade pitch control system on output power, rotor thrust, and blade deformation in sudden change of wind speed are investigated. The NREL 5 MW offshore wind turbine is used as the baseline case. In this regard, the modal approach is implemented for modeling the flexible blade structure with tension, bending and torsion degrees of freedom. The unsteady vortex lattice method is employed to obtain the aerodynamic loads. Moreover, the... 

The present study was aimed at developing a model to optimize the sizing parameters and farm layout of wind turbines according to the wind resource and economic aspects. The proposed model, including aerodynamic, economic and optimization sub-models, is used to achieve minimum levelized cost of electricity. The blade element momentum theory is utilized for aerodynamic modeling of pitch-regulated horizontal axis wind turbines. Also, a comprehensive cost model including capital costs of all turbine components is considered. An iterative approach is used to develop the optimization model. The modeling results are presented for three potential regions in Iran: Khaf, Ahar and Manjil. The optimum... 

A series of low speed wind tunnel tests were conducted on a section of a 660 kW wind turbine blade to examine the effects of distributed surface contamination on its performance characteristics. The selected airfoil was tested with a clean surface, two types of zigzag roughness, strip tape roughness and distributed contamination roughness. The straight and zigzag leading edge roughness models simplify the contamination results in an early turbulence transition. In this study, surface contamination was simulated by applying 0.5 mm height roughness over the entire upper surface of the airfoil. The distribution density varied from the leading edge to the trailing edge of the model. Our data... 

In this paper, a reduced order model for the nonlinear dynamic analysis of the wind turbine blade under operational loading is presented. The accuracy and efficiency of the proposed model are investigated through various static and dynamic analyses. A comprehensive straightforward formulation for the nonlinear beam model is developed based on different large deformation strain theories. Also, the fluid-structure coupling effects due to quasi-steady aerodynamics and gravitational forces are included. The new matrix expressions are introduced for direct conversion of the developed formulation into the reduced order model (ROM). Thereafter, the ROM based on the Galerkin method is developed... 

In this paper a structural health monitoring technique considering the effect of wind on structural stability on laminated composite wind turbine has been investigated. Based on fluid structure interaction method and Has hin failure criteria, condition monitoring of w ind turbine blades under sudden change of wind speed is investigated. The embedded fiber optic sensors are considered to detect the change in strain due to wind forces on the blades  

In this study a multi-objective genetic algorithm is utilized to obtain a Pareto optimal set of solutions for geometrical characteristics of airfoil sections for 10-meter blades of a horizontal axis wind turbine. The performance of the airfoil sections during the process of energy conversion is evaluated deploying a 2D incompressible unsteady CFD solver and the second law analysis. Artificial neural networks are trained employing CFD obtained data sets to represent objective functions in an algorithm which implements exergetic performance and integrity characteristics as optimization objectives. The results show that utilizing the second law approach along with Pareto optimality concept... 

Rapid growth in generating power from wind turbines led to application of long laminated composite blades. However, as the length of blades increases, the risk of failure due to excessive vibration increases. Therefore, a reliable wind power generator requires an efficient and accurate, yet economical structural health monitoring system to detect vibration and apply a reliable control to prevent from unpredicted failure. This paper presents an optimal, low cost and continuous vibration monitoring system for laminated composite blades using Fiber Bragg Grating (FBG). Utilizing a layerwise displacement theory, the Finite Element (FEM) model has been developed for the wind turbine blade. The...