Analysis of a structural-aerodynam ic coupled method
for nonlinear aeroelastic response of large-scaled HAWT
LIAO Mingfu1, LYU Pin2 Abstract Aeroelastic effect is becoming an important issue due to the larger, lighter and more flexible blades of large-scaled HAWT. In this study, a structural-aerodynamic coupled method has been developed to predict the nonlinear aeroelastic responses by coupling a nonlinear beam model based on geometrically exact beam (GEB) theory for blades structural dynamics with a free-vortex wake (FVW) model for the prediction of unsteady aerodynamic loads. The two models are coupled by exchanging the data based on a partitioned loosely coupled methodology. At first, the nonlinear beam model is validated by validation cases which all show a good agreement with results obtained by other authors. Subsequently, by comparing the data of MEXICO experiment with the FVM model, the capability of the model to accurately predict the aerodynamic loads of rigid blades is also validated. Finally, the numerical responses for NREL 5 MW RWT are estimated through fluid-structure interaction simulations. The blade behaviour is also compared with numerical results obtained from different aerodynamic models. The results show that the coupled method is capable of evaluating blade nonlinear responses for large-scaled HAWT.
Application on NREL 5MW
Fig. 1 shows the peak values of tip flapwise deflection under different scaled loads. The standard loads are calculated based on undeformed NREL 5MW blade without tile, yaw, precone and yaw angle at rated wind speed. It shows the linear beam starts to fail when the scaled factor is larger than 0.8. Fig 2 shows the response of NREL 5MW blade at rated wind speed. The response from the nonlinear aeroelastic model is larger than from FAST. But as shown by Fig 3, when flap stiffness and edge stiffness are both adjusted to 50%, the average deflection from the nonlinear aeroelastic model is almost the same as from FAST, while the amplitude is slightly larger. Conclusions (1) The GEB solver has the capability to simulate the response for large deflection, while the linear beam theory totally fails. (2) The results of FVM show better agreement than BEM against to the MEXICO experiment data. (3) To study the aerodynamic characteristic of large deflection, the aeroelastic model with GEB and FVM solver is a reliable nonlinear aeroelastic analysis tool for large wind turbine blades.