Open AccessAssessment of a comprehensive aeroelastic tool for horizontal‐axis wind turbine rotor analysis
Author(s) -
Calabretta Angelo,
Molica Colella Marco,
Greco Luca,
Gennaretti Massimo
Publication year - 2016
Publication title -
wind energy
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.743
H-Index - 92
eISSN - 1099-1824
pISSN - 1095-4244
DOI - 10.1002/we.1983
Subject(s) - aeroelasticity , stall (fluid mechanics) , aerodynamics , wake , downwash , engineering , aerodynamic force , turbine , turbine blade , control theory (sociology) , aerospace engineering , structural engineering , computer science , control (management) , artificial intelligence
This paper presents the development of a computational aeroelastic tool for the analysis of performance, response and stability of horizontal‐axis wind turbines. A nonlinear beam model for blades structural dynamics is coupled with a state‐space model for unsteady sectional aerodynamic loads, including dynamic stall effects. Several computational fluid dynamics structural dynamics coupling approaches are investigated to take into account rotor wake inflow influence on downwash, all based on a Boundary Element Method for the solution of incompressible, potential, attached flows. Sectional steady aerodynamic coefficients are extended to high angles of attack in order to characterize wind turbine operations in deep stall regimes. The Galerkin method is applied to the resulting aeroelastic differential system. In this context, a novel approach for the spatial integration of additional aerodynamic states, related to wake vorticity and dynamic stall, is introduced and assessed. Steady‐periodic blade responses are evaluated by a harmonic balance approach, whilst a standard eigenproblem is solved for aeroelastic stability analyses. Drawbacks and potentialities of the proposed model are investigated through numerical and experimental comparisons, with particular attention to rotor blades unsteady aerodynamic modelling issues. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.