Aeroelastic Simulation of Wind Turbines with Active Flow Control

Technische Universitt Berlin Fakultt V Institut fr Strmungsmechanik und Technische Akustik Fachgebiet fr Experimentelle Strmungsmechanik
Diploma Thesis
A BEM Based Simulation-Tool for Wind Turbine Blades with Active Flow Control Elements
from : Date : Course : 1st Supervisor : 2nd Supervisor :
Guido Weinzierl 19.04.2011 Strmungslehre II Prof. Dr.-Ing. C. O. Paschereit Dipl.-Ing. G. Pechlivanoglou
Preface
This diploma thesis was written in order to fulll the requirements of obtaining the degree Dipl.-Ing. at Berlin University of Technology. The work was carried out in collaboration with Smart Blade GmbH and the Wind Energy Group at the Institute of Fluid Dynamics and Technical Acoustics (ISTA) at the Berlin University of Technology.
I especially want to thank Georgios Pechlivanoglou for his great support and supervision of the project. Many thanks as well to Oliver Eisele from Smart Blade GmbH, for the numerous brainstorming sessions and Smart Blade GmbH in general, for generously funding this thesis.
Abstract
This thesis describes the development of a software tool which provides a method to investigate the use of dierent active ow control (AFC) concepts for load reduction and power regulation of wind turbines. The software features an aeroelastic model
to calculate the dynamic response of the wind turbine structure. The program is an extension of
QBlade,
an open-source GUI application for wind turbine calculations.
The user can easily dene a wind turbine blade on which various active elements can be positioned. The dierent aerodynamic characteristics of the AFC-elements These polars can either be
are considered by their individual lift and drag polars.
calculated using an implemented two-dimensional panel method code (XFoil ) or imported to provide an interface to wind tunnel measurement data or CFD calculations. To model the aerodynamic and structural behavior of the turbine, a binding to the aerodynamic analysis routines
AeroDyn
and the structural analysis code
implemented. These simulation codes are provided by the
YawDyn is National Wind Technology

(NREL).
Center
(NWTC) of the
National Renewable Energy Laboratory
In order to control the active elements on the blade, two control approaches are provided: a simple optimization loop, to nd an optimal actuator position for each time step and a PID controller. Both approaches can be used, for example, to minimize the root bending moment of the wind turbine blades, either by keeping local blade element forces constant or by minimizing blade deections or blade deection rates.
Zusammenfassung
Die vorliegende Diplomarbeit beschreibt die Entwicklung einer Software, die es ermglicht den Einsatz von Elementen zur aktiven Strmungskontrolle (AFC) zur Lastreduktion und Leistungsregelung an Windkraftanlagen zu untersuchen. Die Software beinhaltet ein aeroelastisches Simulationsmodul, um den dynamischen Einuss der AFC-Elemente auf die Struktur der Windturbine zu berechnen. eine Erweiterung von Das Programm ist
QBlade,
einer open-source Anwendung zur Rotorblattentwick-
lung und -berechnung nach der Blatt-Element-Methode.
Der Benutzer kann auf einfache Art und Weise ein Rotorblatt entwerfen, auf dem mehrere aktive Elemente platziert werden knnen. Der unterschiedliche aerodynamische Einuss der verschiedenen Elemente, ist durch ihre individuellen Auftriebs- und Widerstandspolare gekennzeichnet. Die Polaren knnen dabei entweder direkt ber
eine eingebaute zweidimensionale Panelmethode (Xfoil ) berechnet werden, oder sie werden importiert, um die Verbindung zu Windkanalversuchen oder CFD Simulationen herzustellen. Um das aerodynamische und strukturelle Veralten der Anlage
zu modellieren, werden die aerodynamischen Berechnungsroutinen strukturdynamische Berechnungscode
AeroDyn
und der
YawDyn
benutzt. Die Programme werden vom
National Wind Technology Center tory

(NREL) bereitgestellt.
(NWTC) des
National Renewable Energy Labora-
Um die aktiven Elemente auf dem Rotorblatt zu regeln, werden zwei Herangehensweisen verfolgt: Zum einen eine einfache Optimierungsschleife, um fr jeden
Berechnungszeitschritt die optimale Aktuatorposition zu nden, zum anderen ein PID Regler. Beide Regelstrategien knnen beispielsweise dazu genutzt werden, das Blat-
twurzelbiegemoment zu reduzieren. Dazu werden entweder die lokalen Krfte am Blattelement konstant gehalten, oder die Rotorblattbiegung oder deren nderungsrate minimiert.
Contents
1 Introduction 1
I Model Theory
2 Aeroelastic model 3 Aerodynamics
3.1 Wake modeling 3.1.1 3.1.2 3.2 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Blade element momentum theory (BEM) . . . . . . . . . . . . . Generalized dynamic wake model (GDW) . . . . . . . . . . . .
4
5 8
8 10 14 15 15 19 22 26 27
Airfoil aerodynamics 3.2.1 3.2.2 3.2.3 3.2.4
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
2D static airfoil characteristics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Polar extrapolation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Unsteady blade element aerodynamics Stall delay and 3D eects . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
3.3
Tower shadow . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
4 Structural dynamics
4.1 YawDyn . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
28
31
5 Turbulent wind simulation 6 Active Flow Control
34 36
Contents
VI
II Software
7 QBladeAE
7.1 Active Flow Control simulation 7.1.1 7.1.2 7.2 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Optimization loop . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . PID controller . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
39
40
41 43 46 49 49 50 50 52 52 52 54 54 56 57 57
Blade related simulation parameters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7.2.1 7.2.2 7.2.3 7.2.4 7.2.5 7.2.6 QBlade and NREL blade format . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Blade mass . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Blade center of gravity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Blade mass moment of inertia . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Torsional root spring constant . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Dynamic stall parameters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
7.3
Program modules . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7.3.1 7.3.2 7.3.3 7.3.4 Blade design with active elements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Aerodynamic representation of active elements . . . . . . . . . . Wind eld simulation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Aeroelastic simulation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
III Simulation
8 Standard simulation
8.1 8.2 8.3 8.4 8.5 8.6 Turbine and blade model . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Blade validation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Dynamic stall eects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
60
61
61 64 65 67 68 69
Yawed turbine . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Wind eld . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Baseline simulation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
9 AFC simulation
9.1 Flap parameter study . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9.1.1 9.1.2 9.1.3 Flap positions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Flap size . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Actuator speed and range . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
71
73 74 76 79
Contents
9.1.4 9.1.5 9.2 Sensor delay . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Multiple aps . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
VII
81 81 82
Optimization loop . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
10 Suggestions for future research 11 Conclusion Bibliography A Appendix

A.1 A.2 QBladeAE input les for YawDynAE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Geometric blade design . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
85 87 88 94
94 98
List of Figures
1.1 Concept of a segmented wind turbine rotor blade with active elements in form of trailing edge aps [52]. 2.1 2.2 3.1 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 6 7
Local blade element velocities and inow angles. . . . . . . . . . . . . . Local blade element forces. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Summary of the various aerodynamic sources that contribute to the airloads on a wind turbine [32]. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
8 11 16
3.2 3.3 3.4
Rotor of a three-bladed wind turbine with the rotor radius
[18]. . . .
2D arfoil characteristics of a blade element. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Lift coecient
cl ()
at dierent Reynolds numbers and xed/free tran17
sition for the DU 91-W2-250 airfoil. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.5 Drag coecient
cd () at dierent Reynolds numbers and xed/free tran18
sition for the DU 91-W2-250 airfoil. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.6 Moment coecient
cm ()
at dierent Reynolds numbers and xed/free . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18 20
transition for the DU 91-W2-250 airfoil. 3.7 3.8
Wind triangular for dierent radial positions [16]. Exemplary time series of
for two radial positions at
rin = 6.8m
and 20
rout = 36.8m.
3.9 Extrapolated
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
cl cd
for the DU 91-W2-250 airfoil and
cl cd
according to the 21
at plate theory. 3.10 Extrapolated
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . for the DU 91-W2-250 airfoil and according to the
at plate theory.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
22
3.11 Dynamic stall events on a NACA 0012 airfoil (reprinted from [9] and [32]). 24 4.1 4.2 Components of a HWAT structural model . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29
The equivalent hinge-spring model for the blade ap degree of freedom [28]. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32
List of Figures
4.3 View of the HAWT dening selected terms and coordinate systems. All angles are shown in their positive sense. The bold X,Y,Z axes are xed in space and are the coordinates in which the wind components are dened (VX, VY, VZ). Note that blade azimuth is zero when the blade is at the 6 o'clock position [28]. 5.1 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
IX
33
Wind speed at hub height and inow velocity at blade tip including rotation, wind shear and tower eect. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35 35 37 41
5.2 6.1 7.1 7.2
3D wind eld from QBladeAE with
20x20
points.
. . . . . . . . . . . .
Feedback ow control triad (after [25]). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . QBladeAE embedded in QBlade and XFLR5. . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Working principle of QBladeAE with input and output control to the modied NREL codes. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42
7.3
Blade with two active elements, which are represented by using several airfoil polars. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43 44
7.4 7.5
Schematic control circuit and control terminology. . . . . . . . . . . . . Implementation of the optimization loop for nding the optimal polar for each active section (element dependent). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
45
7.6
Implementation of the PID controller: one for each active element (blade dependent). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47
7.7
Exemplary control circuit for the PID controller using a trailing edge ap as actuator and the blade ap rate as control variable. . . . . . . . 47 49
7.8 7.9
Dierent blade denition in QBlade and NREL format. . . . . . . . . . Dierent blade masses over blade length and the used exponential approximation function [51]. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
50
7.10 Simplied geometric representation (rectangular cone) of a homogeneous blade section for the calculation of the blade center of gravity. . . . . . 51
c 7.11 Dynamic stall related parameter using l -curve for automatically detectcd
ing the critical static stall angle
stall .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
53 54 57 58 58
7.12 QBladeAE active blade design module. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7.13 QBladeAE multiple aerodynamic polar module. . . . . . . . . . . . . .
7.14 QBladeAE wind eld generator module (beta). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7.15 QBladeAE wind eld generator module (beta). . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
List of Figures
8.1 8.2 3D view of blade . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
62
Blade tip deection with three dierent root spring stinesses. The wind inow is steady and constant over the whole rotor disk. . . . . . . . . . 63 64 65
8.3 8.4 8.5
Rotor power over wind speed calculated with QBlade and QBladeAE. . Blade pitch over wind speed for power regulation. . . . . . . . . . . . .
Inuence of the dynamic stall model on the blade tip deection over time and the angle of attack over radial position for the blade with a pitch angle of
b = 0 .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
66
8.6
Inuence of the dynamic stall model on the blade tip deection over time and the angle of attack over radial position for the blade with a pitch angle of
b = 5 .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
67 68
8.7 8.8
Blade tip deection for dierent yaw angles.
Turbulent wind speed time series in x-direction at a hub height of and a mean wind speed of
89m
69 70
13ms.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
8.9 9.1
Results of baseline simulation. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Overlapping airfoil contours for positive deection. Red: The original DU-96-W-180 airfoil; Green: slightly deected exible ap; Red: fully deected exible ap [41]. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
71
9.2
Overlapping airfoil contours for negative deection. Red: The original DU-96-W-180 airfoil; Green: slightly deected exible ap; Red: fully deected exible ap [41]. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72
9.3
Lift and drag coecient over angle of attack
cl ()
for exible ap at 72 73 74
four ap angles. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9.4 9.5 9.6 Extrapolated
360 cl -polar.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Blade with 9 equidistant outer sections. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Load reduction of a single ap with a length of positions.
1.5m
at dierent radial 76
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
9.7
Load reduction of single aps with dierent lengths and dierent radial positions. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 78
9.8
Out-of-plane bending moment for baseline simulation and the single
13.5m
9.9
aps with maximum load reduction. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
78
Inuence of dierent actuator speeds on the load reduction for two ap congurations. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79
List of Figures
9.10 Inuence of dierent actuator ranges and speeds on the load reduction for a
XI
9m
ap conguration.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . for the baseline, the single
80 81 82
9.11 Flap angle for
9m
ap over simulation time.
9.12 Load reduction over controller time delay. 9.13 Local blade element force PID controlled
DF N
at
AE# 3
13.5m
ap and the multiple individually optimization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 84
loop controlled aps.
List of Tables
8.1 8.2 9.1 9.2 9.3 9.4 A.1 Turbine parameters used for the simulation. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62 63 75 75 77 83 98 Blade structural parameters used for the simulation. . . . . . . . . . . . Radial position of the 9 possible active elements. . . . . . . . . . . . . . Load reduction for
1.5m
ap at dierent radial positions. . . . . . . . .
Load reduction for dierent ap lengths and dierent radial positions. . Load reduction for individual sections using the optimization loop. . . . Blade geometric parameters in NREL format used for the simulation. .
Nomenclature
Greek symbols
............... ............... ............... ............... .............. ............... ............... ............... ............... p . . . . . . . . . . . . . . a ............... a .............. B .............. c ............... cd . . . . . . . . . . . . . . cl . . . . . . . . . . . . . . cm . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ct . . . . . . . . . . . . . . D .............. DF N . . . . . . . . . . DF T . . . . . . . . . . . F .............. L ............... pn . . . . . . . . . . . . . . pt . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
angle of attack local blade twist wake skew angle yaw angle blade angular velocity inow angle blade azimuthal angle air density local pitch angle blade pitch angle
Roman symbols
axial induction factor tangential induction factor number of blades chord length drag coecient lift coecient moment coecient rotor thrust coecient blade element drag force blade element normal force blade element tangential force force,
Prandtl's tip-loss factor
blade element lift force load normal to rotor plane load tangential to rotor plane
Nomenclature
XIV
PMA . . . . . . . . . . Q .............. r ............... T .............. U . . . . . . . . . . . . . ve,ip . . . . . . . . . . . . ve,op . . . . . . . . . . . . W ..............

AFC . . . . . . . . . . . AFMB . . . . . . . . .
blade element pitching moment rotor torque local blade element radius rotor thrust inow velocity out-of-plane velocity due to structural deection in-plane velocity due to structural deection incident velocity
AE . . . . . . . . . . . . . Active Element Active Flow Control axial ap bending moment (out-of-plane)
BEM . . . . . . . . . . . blade element momentum theory CFD . . . . . . . . . . . GDW . . . . . . . . . . Computational Fluid Dynamics generalized dynamic wake model
GUI . . . . . . . . . . . . Graphical User Interface HAWT . . . . . . . . . Horizontal Axis Wind Turbine
ISTA . . . . . . . . . . . Institute of Fluid Dynamics and Technical Acoustics NREL . . . . . . . . . . National Renewable Energy Laboratory NWTC . . . . . . . . . National Wind Technology Center
1 Introduction
The use of wind energy is continuously growing and in order to increase it's market competitiveness, wind turbines must become even more cost eective. The key parameter therefore is e/kWh as in any other energy system. The cost of electricity generated by modern wind turbines ranges from approximately 0.05 - 0.07 e/kWh at sites with very good wind speeds to 0.09 - 0.11 e/kWh at sites with low wind speeds [14]. To cut costs, the expenses for production, operation and maintenance have to be reduced while at the same time the performance of wind turbines has to increase. One possibility to
achieve this is to build larger wind turbines which can extract more wind energy from a bigger swept area. However, the continuous increase of the rotor diameter leads to structural problems due to the enormous size of the wind turbine blades. As the wind uctuations over the swept area get higher, the loads on the blades due to wind shear layer, tower shadow, yaw misalignment and atmospheric turbulence increase. In addition to that, the higher blade mass introduces higher cyclic loads, which also have negative inuence on the lifetime of the blades.
One attempt to overcome the inherent limitations of upscaling and to reduce the structural load on the wind turbine, is the introduction of an individual pitch control. Such a system has two major drawbacks. Firstly, the pitch actuator is relatively slow and cannot cope with high-frequency uctuations; secondly the actuation takes place at the innermost part of the blade, whereas the highest load contribution comes from the outermost part. Consequently, the elasticity of the blade waters down the control circuit.
Another approach is the use of active ow control devices (AFC) on wind turbine blades. Actuators for active ow control can be integrated directly in the blade, with sensors, not only behind the rotor as current anemometers and ow vanes but locally near the actuator. Measuring and controlling the loads directly where they occur,
1 Introduction
plus having multiple, smaller and faster actuators makes it possible to further reduce load uctuations.
Recently a signicant amount of research has been carried out on this topic.
Al-
though the main focus seems to lie on the investigation of trailing edge devices, a wide range of other possibilities might be of interest too, such as:
Active mini-aps Flexible leading-edge aps Inatable stall ribs Inclined and vertical spoilers
In order to investigate the behavior of dierent AFC-solutions a software is developed to determine the potential of these concepts. The software allows easy denition of
a wind turbine rotor blade with several so-called active elements (AE). Figure 1.1 shows an example of how such a rotor blade, equipped with several active elements, may look like. On the outer region, there are four trailing edge ap devices integrated.
The active elements are characterized by a variable aerodynamic performance which is expressed by multiple lift, drag and moment polars. The response of the blade and the wind turbine can be investigated using an unsteady aeroelastic simulation. A binding to the aerodynamic analysis routine
AeroDyn
[38] and the structural dynamic code
YawDyn
[28] is implemented.
These simulation codes are provided by the National
Wind Technology Center (NWTC). The aerodynamic package features unsteady simulation with dynamic stall eect modeling as well as and full turbulent wind eld input. The structural dynamic model is simple, yet useful for analyzing preliminary designs and assessing aerodynamic responses, as the simulation time is very low and a lot of parameter investigations can be carried out.
Next to the core routines, a major driving design parameter of the software is user friendliness. The user is able to perform simulations without manual script handling or code related operations. To achieve an easy-to-use interface, a GUI was implemented which automatically handles all the communication between the modules and provides dynamic data visualization. The software itself is based on the open-source application
1 Introduction
Figure 1.1:
Concept of a segmented wind turbine rotor blade with active elements in form of trailing edge aps [52].
QBlade
[35] and as it deals with the investigation of the aforementioned user-dened
active elements, the name speaks for itself:
QBladeAE.
After describing the theory of the models used by the software in Part I, the second Part II of this work presents the working principle of the software. In Part III a parameter study is performed on a normal blade conguration, to investigate the behavior of the physical models. Finally,
QBladeAE
is being used to simulate an exemplary
blade with exible aps in dierent congurations. The results are compared with the baseline conguration to point out the advantages of the AFC-solution for load reduction on wind turbines.
The focus of this project lies on the development of the software and not on the investigation and comparison of dierent AFC-solutions.
Part I Model Theory
2 Aeroelastic model
As mentioned in the introduction QBladeAE works in conjunction with AeroDyn. This set of FORTRAN subroutines contains a pure aerodynamic wind turbine model description and is provided by NREL. AeroDyn is no stand alone application and needs to be coupled with a structural program, which provides information about the dynamic structural deections of the wind turbine and the elastic blades, as well as the operating conditions (e.g. rotational speed and blade pitch angles). As the structural deections induce changes in the aerodynamic forces, the computation gets fully aeroelastic. Currently AeroDyn works together with three structural programs, which dier in their level of complexity. These are YawDyn (which is used by QBladeAE), FAST and ADAMS (4).
The structural program controls the whole turbine simulation and calls the AeroDyn subroutines during runtime (once for each time step, blade and blade element), in order to obtain the aerodynamic forces on the blades. The blade is split into several blade elements and for each element the lift and drag forces as well as the pitching moment is determined. The computation is broken down into a two-dimensional local blade element formulation. All element velocities are accumulated and expressed in the local blade element coordinate system. Finally, a resulting incident velocity a resulting inow angle of attack lift coecient
with
is determined.
Using airfoil polar tables for the
cl (),
drag coecient
cd ()
and moment coecient
cm (),
the resulting
element forces can be calculated.
After integrating the forces over each blade, the
structural model updates the dynamic deections of the blade and the wind turbine structure in the next time step. Consequently, the local element velocities change, Figure 2.1 shows the
which in turn aects the blade element aerodynamics again.
dierent portions of the velocities and inow angles seen by a single blade element.
2 Aeroelastic model
cho ine rd l
Ve,ip
r(1+a') = p +
rotation plane
Ve,op
U(1-a) W
Figure 2.1:
Local blade element velocities and inow angles.
The incident velocity
is given as
W = U (1 a) + r(1 + a ) + ve,op + ve,ip

where
(2.1)
U is the (unsteady) inow velocity, r the local element circumferential speed, a and a the axial and tangential induction factors and ve,op and ve,ip the in-plane and out-of-plane velocities due to the structural deection. The total inow angle is a combination of the angle of attack and the local element pitch angle , which is again consists of the blade pitch angle p and the local blade twist .
As described in 3.2, the ow around the airfoil produces the aerodynamic lift force
perpendicular to the incident velocity
and the aerodynamic drag force
in ow
direction (Figure 2.2). The resulting force can then be split into a portion perpendicular to the rotor plane, the normal load portion
pn = L cos() + D sin()
and a smaller tangential
pt = L sin() + D cos()
which contributes to the rotation of the rotor.
2 Aeroelastic model
pn L
ine rd l cho
D pt rotation plane
Figure 2.2:
Local blade element forces.
To calculate the aerodynamic and structural forces on the wind turbine, is the task of the aeroelastic model of the software. The methods, working principles and assumptions made within the model are discussed in the following chapters. The aeroelastic problem is split into the aerodynamic model and the structural dynamics model.
3 Aerodynamics
The aerodynamic model used by QBladeAE contains representations of several dierent aerodynamic eects on a wind turbine (HAWT) which will be described below. This includes wake modeling, airfoil aerodynamics (static and dynamic), yawed inow, tower shadow, shear layer and atmospheric turbulence eects. Figure 3.1 gives a general
overview of the periodic and aperiodic aerodynamic sources on a wind turbine.
Floweld Structure
Mostly periodic
Mostly Aperiodic
Wind Speed
Inow
Yaw
Tower Shadow
Wind Wake turbulence dynamics
Blade/ wake interactions
Figure 3.1:
Summary of the various aerodynamic sources that contribute to the airloads on a wind turbine [32].
As can be seen, wind turbines operate under extreme unsteady aerodynamic conditions, which are hard to dene, to measure and to predict with mathematical models [32]. The approaches to describe these eects with the models of AeroDyn are described below.
3.1 Wake modeling

Wind turbines extract kinetic energy from the wind. The air approaches the turbine and is slowed down. As it passes the rotor, there is a step drop in pressure and the velocity further decreases, as the pressure has to reach the atmospheric level again. The dierence in the air ow velocity before and after the turbine accounts for the extracted energy. To calculate the aerodynamic ow across the rotor, dierent models
3 Aerodynamics
are available.
They reach from simple blade element/momentum theory over more
advanced engineering models to complicated full scale CFD simulations. The former is the oldest and most common approach to model the aerodynamics of wind turbines and to calculate the velocity decit in the rotor plane. The latter have high computational costs, but provide a more realistic physical model, as they solve the Navier-Stokes equations. In between these two ends, there are various other models which are mostly adapted from the helicopter industry. These engineering models usually combine the blade element theory with either a dynamic inow or a vortex wake model [32]. A major dierence between the engineering models and the BEM theory is the the modeling of unsteady wake eects. The time dependent changes in the inow and the blade loading can be treated in dierent ways, by making one of the following assumptions:
Frozen wake
One assumption could be that small changes in the inow have no inu-
ence on the induced velocities. The wake is only dependent on the average wind speed over a (short) period of time. This means the unsteady wind component passes the rotor unattenuated [8].
Equilibrium wake
On the other side it could be assumed, that the wake instantaThe induced velocities
neously reacts on changes in the aerodynamic loading.
change as the inow changes and therefore the wake is always in equilibrium. For the simulations, this means that the induction factors have to be re-calculated for every blade element and time step. Most blade element momentum theories make use of this assumption.
Dynamic wake
In reality neither of these assumptions is correct and the truth lies
somewhere in between. Changes in the inow change the vorticity that is trailed into the rotor wake and the full eect of these changes takes a nite time to change the induced ow eld [5]. As indicated above, the most common method to model dynamic inow eects is a combination of the blade element theory and a dynamic inow model. How important the consideration of dynamic inow eects is especially for fast pitching transients and yawed conditions was investigated within the the European Union JOULE 1 and JOULE 2 programs [46], where dierent models were compared to each other, with the model of
Pitt and Peters
[44] probably being the most common
one. For the sake of completeness it shall be mentioned, that there are as well models,
3 Aerodynamics
10
which implement a dynamic wake formulation in the blade element momentum theory, like outlined in [18].
AeroDyn provides two ways of calculating the induced velocities in the rotor plane: the classic blade element momentum (BEM) theory with the equilibrium wake assumption and the general dynamic wake model (GDW). Both are be described in the following paragraphs.
3.1.1 Blade element momentum theory (BEM)

As mentioned above, the blade element momentum theory is one of the oldest methods for wind turbine wake modeling. It is a combination of the blade element theory, in which a blade is split in several independent sections, and a momentum theory, which attributes the loss of momentum in the rotor plane to the aerodynamic eects of the ow passing the blades.
Blade element theory

In the blade element theory, a blade is regarded as a number of independent blade sections or elements. According to the airfoil theory (3.2), the aerodynamic forces
which act on the blade element can be calculated by means of two-dimensional airfoil characteristics. incident velocity With the information of the absolute value and the direction of the
at the blade element, the lift and drag forces as well as the pitching It is assumed that each element
moment can be determined by using airfoil tables.
cuts out an annular ring section of the rotor disc (Figure 3.2), and that the overall rotor performance is the integration over the single annular rotor sections.
The lift and drag forces on the blade element with the chord length are given as
(Figure 2.2)
dL = cl cdrW 2 2 dD = cd cdrW 2 2
(3.1) (3.2)
3 Aerodynamics
11
R dr
Figure 3.2:
Rotor of a three-bladed wind turbine with the rotor radius R [18].
with the trigonometric relations (Figure 2.1) for the inow angle
=+
(3.3) (3.4)
U (1 a) W r(1 + a ) cos() = W sin() =
Blade element and momentum theory (BEM)

The combination of the blade element theory with a momentum theory allows the calculation of the induction factors velocity
a and a , which are necessary to determine the incident
in the rotor plane. It is assumed that each blade element is responsible for
the change of momentum of the air, which passes through the annulus swept by the element [8]. A detailed derivation can be found in many textbooks, such as [18] and only a short introduction is given here.
To determine the induction factors, the aerodynamic forces which contribute to the thrust
and the torque
are set equal with the change of momentum in the annulus
3 Aerodynamics
section. The aerodynamic forces of
12
blades in axial and tangential direction result in
dT = B W 2 cdr(cl cos + cd sin ) 2 2 dQ = B W cdr(cl sin + cd cos )r 2

The momentum theory gives
(3.5) (3.6)
2 dT = 4U a(1 a)rdr
(3.7) (3.8)
dQ = 4U (r)a (1 a)r2 dr
These equations can now be solved iteratively using two-dimensional airfoil data. Note that AeroDyn takes the additional velocities the absolute value and inow angle
ve,op
and
ve,ip
into account for determining but does
of the incident velocity W
not
consider
them in the momentum theory, which might not be the appropriate physical model for the element-wake coupling [38].
Despite it's simplicity, the BEM theory provides relatively accurate results. There are other aerodynamic eects on a real turbine, which can not be modeled with the BEM method directly, because of the assumptions made in the theory. These are eects due to heavy loaded rotors with high induction factors, blade tip and hub losses due to a limited number of blades and skewed inow which is not perpendicular to the rotor plane. AeroDyn includes several corrections to account for these eects:
Tip loss model
The fact that vortices are being shed from the blade tip causes high
axial induction factors, which leads to lower inow velocities at the rotor. This causes to smaller inow angles
and most of the aerodynamic
lift contributes to
the thrust. Less torque means less power and therefore the losses near the blade tips are higher. AeroDyn features two models to calculate the blade tip losses. First of all, the classic model developed by
Prandtl.
An additional correction term
is added to
the momentum Equations 3.7 and 3.8
F =
2 cos1 ef
(3.9) (3.10)
3 Aerodynamics
where
13
f=
B 2
Rr r sin
Prandtl
(3.11)
The other model used in AeroDyn slightly modies the
correction factor
F,
using an empirical relationship for the tip losses on base of the Navier-Stokes
solutions [38]:
Fnew
0.85 FP rantl + 0.5 2 r 1 FP rantl(r/R=0.7 ) =1 R 0.7
Fnew =
, f or 0.7 r/R 1 , f or 0.7 r/R 1
(3.12)
(3.13)
Hub loss model
The eect of a vortex in the hub region is described using a nearly
identical implementation of the tip-loss model. Equation 3.11 is replaced with
f=
B 2
r Rhub Rhub sin
(3.14)
Turbulent wake state
The standard momentum equation used in the BEM theory
gives negative thrust values for induction factors greater than
0.5.
However,
this is not what happens in reality. As the wake becomes turbulent for heavily loaded rotors, air (thus momentum) is transported from the outer ow region into the wake. To account for this eect, the empirical correction of
Glauert
is
implemented in AeroDyn and is slightly modied, to avoid numerical instability:
CT =
8 40 + 4F 9 9
a+
50 4F 9
a2
(3.15)
Skewed wake
To be able to describe the eects of yaw misalignment, AeroDyn proThe model is based on the work of
vides a skewed wake correction. (1926) and was extend by the local element
Glauert
Pitt and Peters (1981). For induction factor askew is given with
steady inow conditions,
askew = a 1 +
where
15 r tan cos 32 R 2
(3.16)
is the azimuthal angle that is zero at the most downwind position of the
3 Aerodynamics
rotor and yaw
14
angle
being the wake skew angle, which can be approximated using the as follows [38]:
(0.6a + 1)
Despite the original assumption made by factor
(3.17)
Glauert, AeroDyn applies the induction
askew
to all local elements [38].
3.1.2 Generalized dynamic wake model (GDW)

The generalized dynamic wake model of AeroDyn is also known as acceleration potential method and is based on the work of the aforementioned model of
Peters and He
(1989), which again is based on
Pit and Peters
[44]. The main advantage over the BEM
method is the inherent inclusion of dynamic wake eects, tip losses and skewed wake aerodynamics [38]. The equations describe the distribution of inow and are written in the form of dierential equations, which can be solved non-iteratively. The GDW model has several drawbacks as well. Theses are:
Instabilities at low wind speeds when the turbulent wake state is approached. AeroDyn uses the BEM method for wind speeds below
8m/s.
No accounting for wake rotation.
AeroDyn uses the BEM method as well to
calculate the tangential induction factor.
Flat disk assumption makes the eect of large aeroelastic deections inaccurate.
The method itself is based on the unsteady and inviscid Euler equations. Assuming the induced velocities are small against the wind velocity momentum can be written as
the conservation of
u 1 p u + U = t x x v 1 p v + U = t x y w w 1 p + U = t x z
(3.18)
(3.19)
(3.20)
3 Aerodynamics
and for continuity of the ow
15
u v z + + =0 x y w
and the Laplace equation for the pressure distribution
(3.21)
p=0
(3.22)
The boundary conditions are the aerodynamic forces on the loaded blade, the pressure returns to ambient pressure far behind the rotor and the equality of discontinuous pressure and rotor thrust. The pressure eld is then split into a term for the spatial variation and a term for the unsteadiness to split the unsteady Euler equations accordingly. A pressure distribution, which gives a discontinuous pressure drop across the rotor and satises the Laplace equation was developed by description of the method is found in [38] and [8].
Kinner
(1937). A more detailed
According to [10] the GDW method for calculating yawed and dynamic inow is surprisingly good for its computational simplicity. However, it contains many simplifying assumptions and it is proposed to implement a free vortex wake method for more accurate results instead. On the other hand, the disadvantage of a free vortex model is the long computation time. As noted in [47], a 10 minute time simulation with the advanced
Alcyone
free wake model lasted 5 days.
3.2 Airfoil aerodynamics

3.2.1 2D static airfoil characteristics
Most wind turbine models including the ones described above make use of twodimensional static airfoil tables. The assumption that the ow around the blade at a given radial position is two-dimensional, as indicated in Figure 3.3, is not always valid especially in the blade root and tip region. On the other hand, The advantage of having static airfoil look-up tables for the aerodynamic forces as a function of the angle of attack
is very useful for the aerodynamic simulation. This approach in contrary
to an on-the-y calculation allows to import airfoil characteristics from wind tunnel
3 Aerodynamics
measurements or complex numerical computations.
16
It is obvious that the key to an
accurate simulation lies in the careful provision of valid airfoil properties. Unfortunately this is a hard task, as wind tunnel measurements for very high Reynolds numbers are very costly and valid CFD simulations very time consuming and computationally intensive.
Lift
Figure 3.3:
2D arfoil characteristics of a blade element.
Once the aerodynamic lift- drag and moment coecients the resulting forces for lift using the denition:
L,
drag
and pitching moment
cl , cd and cm are known, M can then be calculated
cl () = cd () = cm () =
L
2 U c 2
(3.23)
D
2 U c 2
(3.24)
M
2 2 U c 2
(3.25)
As stated in [38] and [49] the largest source of error in load and performance simulations are errors in the airfoil data tables. Figure 3.4 - 3.6 show exemplary how the characteristics for the same airfoil can varies under dierent conditions. The results are computed with XFOIL, a 2D panel method which includes an estimation for viscous ow [12]. The graphs show a calculation for two Reynolds numbers and an additional calculation for xed transition near the leading edge.
3 Aerodynamics
2 Re = 5e6, Ma = 0.1, xtrf = 1.0 Re = 2e6, Ma = 0.1, xtrf = 1.0 Re = 2e6, Ma = 0.1, xtrf = 0.1 1.5
17
0.5
cl
-0.5
-1 -10 -5 0 5 10 15 20
Figure 3.4:
Lift coecient cl () at dierent Reynolds numbers and xed/free transition for the DU 91-W2-250 airfoil.
As the operational conditions of the wind turbine are changing during the simulation, the airfoil performance changes as well. With increasing wind speed or changing rotational speed (in spanwise direction), the Reynolds number varies. That makes it hard to cover the whole range of operation in a simulation with only one set of polars. AeroDyn provides the possibility to dene multiple tables for one airfoil. The user can specify dierent tables for dierent Reynolds numbers. These tables are dynamically accessible during simulation. As will be seen later, this functionality can be used to dene the dierent aerodynamic characteristics of the aforementioned active elements too.
3 Aerodynamics
18
0.14 Re = 5e6, Ma = 0.1, xtrf = 1.0 Re = 2e6, Ma = 0.1, xtrf = 1.0 Re = 2e6, Ma = 0.1, xtrf = 0.1 0.12
0.1
0.08 cd 0.06 0.04 0.02
0 -10 -5 0 5 10 15 20
Figure 3.5:
Drag coecient cd () at dierent Reynolds numbers and xed/free transition for the DU 91-W2-250 airfoil.
-0.05 -0.06 -0.07 -0.08 -0.09 cm -0.1 -0.11 -0.12 -0.13 -0.14 -0.15 -10 -5 0 5 10 15 20 Re = 5e6, Ma = 0.1, xtrf = 1.0 Re = 2e6, Ma = 0.1, xtrf = 1.0 Re = 2e6, Ma = 0.1, xtrf = 0.1
Figure 3.6:
Moment coecient cm () at dierent Reynolds numbers and xed/free transition for the DU 91-W2-250 airfoil.
3 Aerodynamics
19
3.2.2 Polar extrapolation

Unlike airplane wings, wind turbine blades experience stalled operation. The rotational speed of the blade gets higher towards the blade tip, but the average wind inow velocity
u,mean
remains constant.
This results in higher ow angles
in the root
region, as can be seen in Figure 3.7. To compensate for this and to keep the angle of attack
constant over the span width, the blades are structurally twisted inwards
more than outwards. As mentioned above the total inow angle a blade pitch angle of
is given as (assuming
p = 0): = p + + = +
(3.26)
To keep the angle of attack angle
constant, the twist
must increase when the total inow
increases.
The conventional manufacturing process however, allows only a limited blade twist. The root region is likely to operate under stalled conditions. angle of attack of Figure 3.8 shows the
for an inner and an outer section of a
40m
blade with limited twist
root = 13 in the root region. The turbine is operating at a rotational speed of n = 16rpm at u,mean = 13m/s. The average value of the angle of attack is mean = 20 .
It's obvious that the airfoil tables need to be extended to a wider range of angles of attack. But stall phenomena are viscous eects and it is anything but trivial to nd valid numerical or experimental ways to determine the behavior of airfoil characteristics beyond stall. Methods based on the potential ow theory (like used by Xfoil) are only able to include viscous eects by semi-empirical models. Wind tunnels measurements are also complicated, due to the high blockage in the measurement section for high angles of attacks. One way to overcome this problem is to use airfoil characteristics for normal operation and extrapolate them by using the at plate theory. This approach points out the
similarity between a at plate and an airfoil at high angles of attack. This method is refereed to as the Viterna method [55]. As wind turbine airfoils used for the root region are relatively thick, the model can be further adapted. For the QBladeAE, the empirical method described in [37] is used.
360 -extrapolation
in
A similar approach is
described in [50]. Figure 3.9 and 3.10 show the extrapolation of the initial values for
cl
3 Aerodynamics
20
rout rout
rmid
vtot
rmid
rin
u rin
Figure 3.7:
Wind triangular for dierent radial positions [16].
35
ri = 6.8m ro = 36.8m
30
25
[deg]
20
15
10
5 0 10 20 30 time [s] 40 50 60
Figure 3.8:
rout = 36.8m.
Exemplary time series of for two radial positions at rin = 6.8m and
3 Aerodynamics
2 2*sin(x)*cos(x) Re = 5e6 1.5
21
0.5 cl 0 -0.5 -1 -1.5 -180
-150
-120
-90
-60
-30
30
60
90
120
150
180
Figure 3.9:
Extrapolated cl for the DU 91-W2-250 airfoil and cl according to the at plate theory.
and
cd
seen in 3.4 and 3.5. In addition to that, the lift and drag coecients according
to the at plate theory are shown as well:
cl,f p () = cd,90 sin cos cd,f p () = cd,90 sin2
(3.27) (3.28)
As described in [35] the user can inuence the extrapolation via several control variables, to adapt the method to dierent airfoil characteristics. It shall be noted, that the
360 -extrapolation
has no eect on the original two-dimensional airfoil data and
the original polar needs to cover an angles of attack range right up to the stall point. Errors made in the extrapolation process mainly eect the root region of the blade, whose contribution to the energy yield and the structural load is naturally smaller. Nevertheless, the accuracy of valid airfoil data has to be pointed out again.
Next to the physical operation under high angles of attacks, the
360 -extrapolation
of airfoil data is as well needed for the classical BEM-method (3.1.1). This has numerical reasons and is necessary for a successful convergence of the iterations in the BEM method.
3 Aerodynamics
2 1.98*sin(x)*sin(x) Re = 5e6 1.8 1.6 1.4 1.2 cd 1 0.8 0.6 0.4 0.2 0 -180
22
-150
-120
-90
-60
-30
30
60
90
120
150
180
Figure 3.10:
Extrapolated cd for the DU 91-W2-250 airfoil and cd according to the at plate theory.
3.2.3 Unsteady blade element aerodynamics

Until now, only the steady nature of the airfoil performance was described. The airfoil polars are so far not more than simple look up tables. In reality, the blades operate under highly unsteady conditions. Firstly, there is an angle of attack change
over
time, due to blade pitching or yaw misalignment. Secondly, there are in-plan inow velocity changes
U (t) from wind gusts as well as out-of-plane velocity changes due to
wake interactions. According to [32] it is important to distinguish between these two inuences on the airloads and to treat them separately. However, AeroDyn does treat every change in angle of attack equally, whether they arise from blade pitch motions, changes in the relative wind velocity or blade ap or lag motions.
Attached ow conditions

The unsteadiness at blade element level is often put on a level with dynamic stall. It has to be noted, that there are as well unsteady eects in the attached ow region with low angles of attack. These eects become noticeable in moderate amplitude and phase
3 Aerodynamics
23
variations compared to the steady eects [32] provided that the reduced frequencies are small. One way to describe the unsteady eects in the linear lift region was given by Theodorsen and is known as the Theodorsen's theory [53]. The theory is based on the incompressible and inviscid ow theory for thin airfoils. There are extensions which have been developed, including compressible ow and wing rotation eects. As AeroDyn does not include the computation of unsteady airfoil aerodynamics under attached ow conditions, only a reference is made to [32], where a general insight in the unsteady aerodynamics of HAWTs is given.
Dynamic stall
Leaving the linear lift region of an airfoil, stall eects occur. Dynamic stall is describing the phenomenon of delayed stall occurrence on airfoils under unsteady conditions either a time varying in the inow or the angle of attack. An airfoil which oscillates or pitches through the static stall region, experiences delayed stall onset, but considerably stronger and longer-lasting stall eects compared to the static stall development. A cycle of a pitching airfoil, which experiences a dynamic stall hysterisis is shown in Figure 3.11 and can be described as followed: If the static stall angle is exceeded, there is no immediate change in the viscous or inviscid ow around the airfoil, due to a time lag until stall takes place. After the rst appearance of ow reversal in the boundary layer near the trailing edge, the reversal ow moves further upwards to the leading edge. This is when rst large eddies appear and a vortex is formed at the leading edge. This vortex rolls up, gains in strength and is shed downstream, producing an increasing lift slope. At the same time the center of pressure moves along with the vortex, causing a large nose down pitch moment. After the vortex has passed the trailing edge, the lift drops rapidly and full stall takes place. When the angle of attack decreases and falls below the static stall value again, the ow re-attaches from the leading to the trailing edge again [43].
It is obvious that the unsteady stall eects on airfoils cannot generally be included in two-dimensional static airfoil tables. To cover theses eects, an dynamic stall model is implemented in AeroDyn which shall be briey described according to [43]. The model is based on the work of Beddoes and Leishman [31]. It is a semi-empirical model which adapts the attached ow indicial response of an airfoil to the position where ow
By
denition, an indicial function is the response to a disturbance that is applied instantaneously
3 Aerodynamics
24
(a) STATIC STALL ANGLE EXCEEDED (B) FIRST APPEARANCE OF FLOW REVERSAL ON SURFACE
(c) LARGE EDDIES APPEAR IN BOUNDARY LAYER
(d) FLOW REVERSAL SPREADS OVER MUCH OF AIRFOIL CHORD
(e) VORTEX FORMS NEAR LEADING EDGE
(f) LFIT SLOPE INCREASES
(g) MOMENT STALL OCCURS
(h) LIFT STALL BEGINS (i) MAXIMUM NEGATIVE MOMENT (j) FULL STALL
(k) BOUNDRAY LAYER REATTACHES FRONT TO REAR
(l) RETURN TO UNSTALLED VAUES
Figure 3.11:
Dynamic stall events on a NACA 0012 airfoil (reprinted from [9] and [32]).
3 Aerodynamics
separation actually takes place. With an indicial response function the normal lift coecient region is given as
25
the change in
cn
for a angle of attack change
for the attached ow
cC = cn C n 4 I cI = n Ma
with
(3.29) (3.30)
cn
being the slope of the normal coecient in the linear region,
Ma
the Mach
number. The lift coecient is additionally separated in one component for the circulatory part
cC n
and one for the non-circulatory part
cI . n
The response of the tangential
cc in chord wise direction is derived from the circulatory part of cn . The attached ow indicial response is then adapted to the separation point f of the suction side of the airfoil. With the static airfoil data, the separation point f is determined by
force coecient the relation
1+ f 2 cn = cn ( 0 )( ) 2 cc = cn ( 0 ) tan() f
where
(3.31) (3.32)
denotes the angle of attack for zero lift. As these equations are derived from
an inviscid formulation,
is referred to as the static eective separation point, and
might not be the exact point of reversal ow appearance. A empirical time lag is further applied to the movement of the eective separation point to account for the time lag of the real separation point under unsteady conditions. In a last step, the vortex shedding across the upper surface of the airfoil is modeled, as soon as a critical leading edge pressure parameter indicates leading edge separation. This results in the typical lift increase until the airloads return to their static values. The relation between and
cn
cl
can be found in Figure 2.2.
The dynamic stall model described above, is modied slightly in AeroDyn. The main dierences are:
Extension to very high/low angles of attack The eective separation point
f () is not curve tted by an exponential function
at time zero and held constant thereafter; that is a disturbance given by a step function [32].
3 Aerodynamics
but treated in a look up table with linear interpolation in between
26
Two separate point tables are used, one for
cn
and
cc
The advantage of the model is, that it uses very few empirical coecients, mostly derived from the static airfoil tables. The airfoil input les for AeroDyn contain the necessary values for the dynamic stall models. QBladeAE automatically calculates and exports the values, (7.2.6) which are:
Angle of attack for zero lift slope for zero lift
cn cn cn
at stall value for positive angle of attack at stall value for negative angle of attack
Minimum
cd
value
Angle of attack for minimum
cd
value
cd ,min
The model provides a fairly accurate way to predict the unsteady eects of dynamic stall but it has to be noted, that none of the available models are developed to full extend and future investigations have to be made on this topic [32].
not
Furthermore the dynamic model used for simulating active elements in QBladeAE is changed according to the specic active elements used and has to be applied with
caution. Unfortunately it is not possible to derive a generally adapted model for each dierent kind of active ow control actuator for example leading edge or trailing edge ap. A modied dynamic stall model for trailing edge aps can be found in [1].
3.2.4 Stall delay and 3D eects

Measurements show, that conventional HAWT simulations can under-predict the power output compared to measured data. Beside the under estimation of delayed stall due to dynamic stall eects, another reason for the under-prediction are three-dimensional ow eects which are caused by centrifugal and Coriolis forces. These forces can have a positive eect on the pressure gradient on the suction side, so that stall is delayed [8]. Numerical investigations support these results [3] and point out their importance.
3 Aerodynamics
27
Another eect responsible for stall delay are the incident ow velocities which result in a realtive wing sweep [32].
The eects mentioned above, are still undergoing research and not form of threedimensional airfoil correction is included in AeroDyn. It has to be noted as well, that the BEM theory (3.1.1) can not handle three-dimensional eects, as the blade sections are considered to be independent of each other by denition. If there is any desire
for implementation of three-dimensional eects, the static airfoil tables have to be corrected and modied manually.
3.3 Tower shadow

The inuence of the tower shadow can be modeled as a velocity change seen by the blade. The inuence is manifested in a velocity decit normal to the rotor plane. AeroDyn uses two models to simulate the tower eects. They both use a potential ow around a cylinder as basis and superimpose either a dam model for upwind turbines and an additional wake model for downwind turbines. Based on the tower diameter a drag value
cd,tower
is used to calculate the dimensionless velocity eld according to
u=1
x + 0.1 cd,tower (x + 0.1)2 y 2 + ((x + 0.1)2 + y 2 )2 2 (x + 0.1)2 + y 2 y (x + 0.1)y cd,tower v=2 + ((x + 0.1)2 + y 2 )2 2 (x + 0.1)2 + y 2
(3.33)
(3.34) (3.35)
where
u and v are the components of the horizontal wind in the x and y direction. The parameters x and y are the upwind and crosswind distances normalized by the tower
radius [38]. For the tower wake model of downwind turbines, which are of no interest within this report, reference is made to [38] as well.
Especially the exible blades and the tower make a wind turbine is a highly dynamic system. To model the behavior of the turbine, a dynamic structural model is necessary for several reasons: Firstly to determine extreme loads for the certication process, secondly for the time dependent load variations on the components for fatigue load calculation, in the third place to calculate deections which inuence the aerodynamic model and nally to analyze the stability of the design. acting on the structure [42]: Dierent kind of loads are
Aerodynamic loads Gravitational loads Inertial loads

forces.
The aerodynamic loads are listed in Figure 3.1. The weight of the blades and the nacelle resulting in a force
pointing downwards. Blade mass imbalances cause additional periodic forces. They include centrifugal and gyroscopic forces as well as acceleration
Operational loads
Transient turbine operation loads, initialized by the control sys-
tem, such as starting up, pitching, breaking or yawing. Currently lots of wind turbine analysis codes available. They all include an aerodynamic model which is either a BEM method or other engineering models (3.1) and a structural model, which describes the motions and deformations of the wind turbine. Furthermore the simulation models include a representation of the exible drive train, an electric model for the generator and interfaces for implementing control strategies for the wind turbine operations. The latter are necessary for modeling the high dynamic stresses a wind turbine is suering from, during maneuvers like emergency stops or power regulation. The main components of a state-of-the-art aeroelastic simulation code for wind turbines is shown in Figure 4.1.
29
Blades
Drive Train Break Generator Control Nacelle
Tower Foundation
Figure 4.1:
Components of a HWAT structural model
30
The structural model of the turbine itself, can be generally described by Newton's second law
M x + C x + Kx = F
with
(4.1)
being the mass matrix,
the damping matrix and
the stiness matrix. To
solve this set of equations there are dierent approaches used in wind turbine simulation codes. There are mainly three types of models, which vary in their level of complexity:
Assumed mode shapes

modeling.
An (assumed) modal representation is used for the dynamic
The modal properties of the rotating blades and the non-rotating
tower are computed independently by using information like mass and stiness distribution.
Multi Body System
A multi body system describes the dynamic structure with only
a few rigid and eventually exible elements, which are coupled with joints. The advantage of a MBS system is, that large displacements can be modeled.
Finite Element System
The nite element method is used to approximately nd the
solutions to the partial dierential equations of the mechanical system. A large but nite number of elements are used to mesh the structure, resulting in high computational cost. The code is usually only used for layout design and stress calculations but not for dynamic wind turbine models. As mentioned above, there are several design codes available. Almost every major research center has developed their own code. There are commercial products, like
GH Bladed
with license costs of 30.000 [15] and free open-source codes like NREL
provides them. An overview of existing codes can be found in [36] and [42]. Some of the most common design codes are:
GH BLADED FLEX5 HAWC2
from GL Garrad Hassan,
from the Technical University of Denmark, from the Riso National Laboratory for Sustainable Energy DTU, from the Delft University of Technology, from MSC Software in collaboration with the National Renewable Re-
DUWECS
ADAMS/WT
search Laboratories
31
FAST-AD YawDyn
from the National Renewable Energy Laboratories
from the National Renewable Energy Laboratories
Some of these codes were compared to each other in [39] and validated against measurements in [47] and [48], showing sometimes big discrepancies between each other and between simulation and wind tunnel experimental data.
As with the aerodynamic model, it is not intended to develop a new design code within this project. Regarding the time constraint, a comparable level of complexity could not have been reached. As mentioned above, the AeroDyn simulation routines from NREL are used for the aerodynamic wind turbine calculation and for simplicity the choice for the structural model to work with AeroDyn came down to YawDyn . Although it is a very simple model, it provides rst insight in the aeroelastic behavior of wind turbines. As the focus of the project lies mainly in the preliminary comparison of dierent AFC solutions rather than on the detailed investigation of a single approach the provided model of YawDyn seems to be sucient, although it was mainly developed for the investigation of yaw motions. In the following, the model used in YawDyn is described.
4.1 YawDyn
YawDyn was developed in 1992 by the National Wind Technology Center (NWTC) at NREL. It was preliminarily used to investigate the yaw dynamics of HAWTs. Next to the aerodynamic models used in AeroDyn, it provides the structural response of the wind turbine at xed rotational speed in a fully turbulent wind eld. The following assumptions are made in the structural model of YawDyn:
Only the yaw motion
and the blade apping motion
are used in the devel-
opment of the equations of motions.
The rotor can be either modeled as apping rotor with two or three blades, a teetering rotor for two blades or completely rigid.
Recently
NREL stopped the support for YawDyn and does not recommend it any more. The use of FAST, which is certied from Germanischer Lloyd WindEnergie [7], is proposed instead.
32
Figure 4.2:
The equivalent hinge-spring model for the blade ap degree of freedom [28].
During simulation the system can operate at either a xed yaw angle, at a xed yaw rate or with free yaw motion using parameters for yaw spring stiness, yaw damper coecient and constant yaw friction moment.
Upwind/Downwind rotor simulation with tilted rotor ( ) and precone blade angle. Blade pitch and lag motions are not considered, as they are not important to the yaw response.
The tower, the rotor shaft, the nacelle and the blades themselves are treated as rigid bodies.
The turbine can only be modeled at xed blade pitch and at a xed rotation rate
No controller input is implemented.
The blades are described by a uniform mass distribution, their distance from the hinge to the blade center of gravity, their mass moment of inertia about the hinge axis and their torsional stiness of the blade root spring.
The hinge-spring model for the blade ap degree of freedom is shown in 4.2. The model of the wind turbine is shown in Figure 4.3. For more information it is refered to [28] and [17].
33
Figure 4.3:
View of the HAWT dening selected terms and coordinate systems. All angles are shown in their positive sense. The bold X,Y,Z axes are xed in space and are the coordinates in which the wind components are dened (VX, VY, VZ). Note that blade azimuth is zero when the blade is at the 6 o'clock position [28].
5 Turbulent wind simulation

The wind inow seen by the wind turbine is everything else but uniform. The turbulent atmospheric boundary layer leads to a vertical wind prole and high turbulent structures in the ow eld. These unsteady turbulences seen by the wind turbine are stochastic, but not completely random (e.g. white noise). There is a spatial and frequency dependent correlation of the turbulence.
Veers
developed a model for turbulent
wind eld computation, which can be used as input for the aforementioned simulation codes [54]. A disadvantage of this model is, that the time histories of the wind eld for the three velocity components
u, v
and
there is no correlation between them.
w are computed independently. In other words, The Mann model, which is based on lineralized
Navier-Stokes equations, takes this additional correlation into account [33].
QBladeAE provides two methods to generate turbulent wind eld input les for the simulation. An internal windeld generator and a GUI for generating input les for NREL's TurbSim [6], which works seamlessly together with the two other NREL modules
. Both modules are based on Veers' model. Figure 5.1 shows the hub height
wind speed and the inow velocity seen from the rotating blade at the blade tip position, computed with TurbSim. The mean wind speed is
13m/s.
Figure 5.2 shows the x-
component of a wind eld generated in QBladeAE. The eld has
20x20
points.
Note,
that the additional coherent structures in TurbSim are only compatible to AeroDyn version 13, which is incompatible with YawDyn.
5 Turbulent wind simulation
35
17
vhub vtip
16
15
14 vx [m/s]
13
12
11
10
9 0 10 20 30 Time [s] 40 50 60
Figure 5.1:
Wind speed at hub height and inow velocity at blade tip including rotation, wind shear and tower eect.
Figure 5.2:
3D wind eld from QBladeAE with 20x20 points.
6 Active Flow Control

The preliminary task of QBladeAE is to provide a possibility to investigate elements on a wind turbine blade, which can actively inuence and control the ow eld: so called active elements. Flow control provides a possibility to meet the growing problems on large scale wind turbines due to their high blade mass. The blade mass increases with the length of the blade by the power of three: put only increases with the power of two:
3 mblade Rblade , whereat the power out2 P Rblade . To reduce the arising uctuating
loads on the blade and to develop mass optimized blades active (and passive) load control becomes more and more interesting.
An obvious solution to meet the challenges of load control on wind turbines is to use already existing systems. The pitch system on modern wind turbines was introduced for power regulation, but it can used as well to alleviate the load uctuations either in a cyclic or individual pitch motion. As can be seen in [26] or [24] these systems
have high potential, especially for the cyclic load compensation of the
1p
frequency
and multiples of it. However, the pitch system has some inherent problems. Firstly it is too slow to react on higher turbulent load uctuations. In addition to that, the pitch acts always on the whole blade and can not cope for local disturbances on the blade, like local wind gusts. Thirdly the actuator is located at the blade root, but the highest potential for load reduction lies in the outer regions of the blade.
To meet these problems, other ways of active ow control (AFC) for load reduction can be introduced. There is a variety of dierent solutions available. These include
Trailing edge devices (Rigid Flaps, Split Flaps, Flexible Flaps) Leading edge devices (Slats, Flexible Leading Edge) Multi-Element devices
37
Gurney Flaps / Micro Tabs Spoiler Boundary layer suction/blowing devices
A more detailed is found in [40] and [19]. AFC solutions inuence the ow eld around the airfoil section of the blade and intent to either delay transition, decrease turbulence or avoid ow separation. This usually entails drag reduction, lift enhancement, mixing augmentation, heat transfer enhancement, and ow-induced noise reduction [19]. Unfortunately the benets of one eect usually include adverse eect on others. To nd an optimized system, which might consist of several AFC elements, is the nal goal for active ow control on wind turbines.
Seperation Control Adjust Sectional Lift Drag Reduction Noise Suppression
Flow Phenomenon
Active Flow Control Triad Devices & Actuators Controls & Sensors
LE / TE Flaps MicroTaps Vortex Generators Synthetic Jets Active Flexible Wall
Motor Piezoelectric MEMs Fluidic
Neural Networks Asaptive Physical Model-Based Dynamical Systems Based Optimal Control Theory
Conventional Optical MEMS
Figure 6.1:
Feedback ow control triad (after [25]).
The main advantage over an intelligent blade pitch control is, that several AFC elements can be located on a blade independent from each other. This means, the ability of individual AFC elements to mitigate fatigue loads or to reduce extreme loads is more dierentiated. On the other hand, the control strategies get more complex. The use of simple heuristic PID controlers might not be appropriate and more sophisticated methods like neuro-fuzzy control approaches are necessary, in order to deal with the non-linear aeroelastic wind turbine system. In addition to that, new sensors like strain

gauges or angle of attack senors to measure the control variables are necessary.
38
The use of AFC solutions on wind turbines is subject to current research. The focus lies especially on trailing edge devices, either in form of active Flaps [4] [1] or in form of Micro Tabs and active Gurney Flaps [57] [13].
In order to get further insight in the benets of active ow control concepts, it is the overall goal of QBladeAE, to provide a simple method and a rst approximation to investigate the inuences of dierent AFC solutions on wind turbines. The software itself is presented in the following Part II.
Part II Software
7 QBladeAE
QBladeAE is used to investigate the behavior of wind turbine blades, which are equipped with active ow control elements using an aeroelastic simulation. It is embedded in the open-source software
QBlade
[34], which again is an extension of
XFLR5
which
[11] (Figure 7.1). It is developed with the cross-platform C++ framework
Qt,
allows easy programming of applications with a graphical user interface. The features of the program suite are:
XFLR5
Foil Design and XFoil analysis
Direct geometric foil design XFoil direct analysis XFoil full and mixed inverse foil design (not included: wing and plane design)
QBlade
Rotor and Turbine design:
Blade design and optimization polar extrapolation
360
Turbine denition and simulation Rotor simulation Active Flow Control Simulation
QBladeAE

Blade design with active elements Aerodynamic description of active elements Wind eld generator (beta) Aeroelastic simulation
7 QBladeAE
41
XFLR5
Direct Foil Desing XFoil Direct/Inverse Design
Figure 7.1:
QBladeAE embedded in QBlade and XFLR5.
As mentioned above, QBladeAE works together with the aerodynamic routines AeroDyn and the structural routines YawDyn. The original FORTRAN source code of
YawDyn was extended by an input/output handling and a control structure, in order to simulate active elements. Therefore the name YawDynAE is chosen for the modied version. QBladeAE allows the user to dene a blade structure, to handle aerodynamic properties (with inherent XFoil calculations and
360 -extrapolation)
and to create all
necessary inputs for the NREL codes via a graphical user interface. It then automatically calls the aeroelastic code externally and reads in the results when the simulation is nished. All the results are visualized within QBladeAE and a binding to
gnuplot
[56] allows the export of all graphs (currently beta status). Furthermore, QBladeAE provides as well a GUI for creating TurbSim wind eld les, which works after the same principle as described above. The workow of QBladeAE can be seen in Figure 7.2. After dening all necessary information, the output les for YawDynAE (yaw-
dyn.ipt),for AeroDyn (aerodyn.ipt), for all the used airfoils (airfoils.dat) and for the active elements (active.ipt) are automatically generated. TurbSim les can be generated independently. Exemplary input les can be found in A.1.
7.1 Active Flow Control simulation

Two steps are necessary to simulate a blade which contains active ow control devices. At rst, a standard blade has to be designed using the blade design module
7 QBladeAE
42
TurbSim
wind.ipt
wind.wnd wind.sum
yawdyn.ipt aerodyn.ipt active.ipt airfoils.dat wind.wnd/.hh
QBladeAE yawdyn.plt yawdyn.opt element.plt active.plt
YawDynAE
AeroDyn
Figure 7.2:
Working principle of QBladeAE with input and output control to the modied NREL codes.
of QBlade. blade.
In a second step, user specied active elements can be added to the
Dedicated blade sections can be declared active, which means these sections
have a variable aerodynamic representation during the runtime of the simulation. The changing aerodynamic representation is realized by multiple airfoil polars for the active elements. The multiple polars are used to describe the dierent operation points of
an active element. When using a trailing edge ap for example, the dierent polars represent dierent ap angles or when using a boundary layer suction device, the polars represent dierent suction rates. During the aeroelastic simulation, a controller is used to determine the optimal actuator operation point and therewith the optimal polar. Figure 7.3 shows a blade with several sections, where two of them are active.
By using the AeroDyn subroutines, this approach can be realized easily. AeroDyn can already handle multiple airfoil polars. Originally this functionality is used for
Reynolds number dependent simulations, where the dierent polars represent the airfoil characteristic under dierent ow conditions, but can as well be used for other runtime variable airfoil characteristics like the eect of ailerons for example. Each airfoil polar table has an ID, which is referred to as MulTabLocvariable (Multiple
7 QBladeAE
43
Active Elements cl cl
Figure 7.3:
Blade with two active elements, which are represented by using several airfoil polars.
Table Location) within AeroDyn. The multiple airfoil tables are stored in the airfoil input les for AeroDyn. For each angle of attack there is more than one lift, drag and eventually moment coecient. Each of the dierent polar sets represent a dierent This table ID is a numerical
airfoil characteristic, dened by the MulTabLoc-value.
value and by changing it, dierent airfoil tables can dynamically be selected within the simulation. The table ID can be used to represent any variable airfoil characteristic, from Reynolds numbers to aileron ap angles. If the desired MulTabLoc-variable is
not directly represented in the airfoil table, linear interpolation between the adjacent tables is performed. If a desired MulTabLoc-value exceeds the range specied in the airfoil table, there is no extrapolation but the most outer table is taken.
In order to determine the optimal actuator position during a simulation two control approaches are implemented: a simple optimization loop and a PID controller. Figure 7.4 illustrates the used control circuit terminology. The aforementioned MulTabLoc is synonymous with the actuator variable
y(t)
which is determined by the controller.
7.1.1 Optimization loop

In order to understand the working principle of the optimization loop, the communication between YawDyn and AeroDyn needs to be described rst. Figure 7.5 shows the three main program loops of YawDyn: the time loop, the blade loop and the blade element loop. The structural program YawDyn calls the aerodynamic program Aero-
7 QBladeAE
disturbance variable z(t) set point w(t) error variable e(t) Controler actuator variable y(t) System control variable x(t)
44
Figure 7.4:
Schematic control circuit and control terminology.
Dyn once for each time step, blade and blade element. The AeroDyn routines return the aerodynamic forces on a single element, which are the normal force on the element (DFN), the tangential force (DFT) and the pitching moment (PMA). In order to determine the incident element velocity and the element forces, AeroDyn needs information about the current state of the element. routines in YawDyn again, which are Within each call of AeroDyn, it calls four (wind and blade element velocities),
GetVNVT
GetRotorParams
(rotor parameters like rotor speed, yaw angle, etc.),
GetBladeParams
(blade parameters like azimuth angle) and element pitch angle, radius, location and
MulTabLoc
GetElemParams
(element parameters like
). If the new parameters for all
the elements of all the blade are determined, the blade and rotor related parameters are updated again.
Figure 7.5 shows as well the implementation of the optimization control loop. It is positioned between the blade and the blade element loop. The loop's task is to nd the optimal active element operation point, which is expressed by the MulTabLoc-variable. The optimization loop runs the element loop several times, but each time with a dierent MulTabLoc-value. If using a trailing edge ap for example, this is synonymous with dierent ap angles. After the loop is nished, the best MulTabLoc-value (e.g. ap angle) is determined, according to the control variable and the desired set point. These parameters are given by the user, who has the possibility to choose the local blade element forces DFN, DFT and PMA as control variables and to specify a desired set point for this parameters (the set point needs to be determined in a previous simulation). It is important to note, that one active ow control device (= active element) can spread over several blade elements. Logically, there is only one MulTabLoc-variable for all the
7 QBladeAE
45
YawDynAE TIME Loop
BLADE Loop CTRL Loop ELEMT Loop
MulTabLoc
Element dependant control variables: - DFN - DFT
Figure 7.5:
Implementation of the optimization loop for nding the optimal polar for each active section (element dependent).
blade elements of one active element, like the trailing edge ap can only have one ap angle for all the covered blade elements. It is important which blade element shall be used to compare the control variable with the set point and only this blade element will perform optimally. In reality this represents the sensor position.
The use of the control loop has disadvantages. First of all the computational eort can be very high, especially when the step size of the loop is very small. Secondly only element related parameters can be used as control variables (DFN and DFT). This means blade or rotor dependent parameters, like blade ap deections or root bending moments can not be controlled directly. Nevertheless one can argue, that the uctuations of the element forces are sources of the load uctuations of the whole blade. In addition to that, the use of an angle of attack sensor for example would only give local element information as well. As the local element incident inow angle is directly coupled to the aerodynamic performance of the element, this approach still has it's
7 QBladeAE
right to exist.
46
A major advantage of the control loop is that it does not require any controller dependent information, as it always nds the optimal actuator operation point. This is not realistic and the results of the optimization loop have to be seen as the optimal potential of the active ow control device.
7.1.2 PID controller

Next to the optimization control loop, a simple PID controller is implemented as well. Each active element on the blade has a PID controller with individual characteristic parameters. The implementation is shown in Figure 7.6. Other than the control
loop, the PID controller is positioned in the time loop of YawDyn because the control variables for the PID controller are no longer element dependent parameters, but blade dependent. The user can choose the control variable to be either the blade ap rate, the blade ap angle and the out-of-plane root bending moment. Unlike the optimization loop, the computational eort using the PID controller is much smaller, as the desired actuator variable (MulTabLoc-value) is directly determined by the PID controller only once per time step.
The control circuit is shown in Figure 7.7.
Next to the controller itself, there is
a rate limiter and a range limiter so that dierent actuator congurations can be investigated (small actuator with big range or large actuator with small range). The range limiter denes the minimal and maximal actuator operation point. Note that this parameter depends as well on the multiple airfoil tables, specied in the airfoil input le for AeroDyn. The actuator range should not exceed the MulTabLoc-values in the airfoil les. The rate limiter controls the maximum speed of the actuator. In order to simulate the time lag between sensor data acquisition and actuator control, a time delay is included. For an easy implementation in the FORTRAN routines of YawDyn, a simple array stores and keeps the desired actuator variables for a certain time, before using them. Note that the controller delay can not be smaller than the simulation time step and can only be expressed by integer multiples of the time step.
7 QBladeAE
47
YawDynAE TIME Loop PID BLADE Loop MulTabLoc
ELEMT Loop
Blade dependant control variables: - FlapRate - FlapAngle - AFMB
Figure 7.6:
Implementation of the PID controller: one for each active element (blade dependent).
Blade Flap Rate 1 Set point 0 PID
Saturation Rate limiter Delay
Actuator Angle 2
Figure 7.7:
Exemplary control circuit for the PID controller using a trailing edge ap as actuator and the blade ap rate as control variable.
7 QBladeAE
48
Controller tuning
The PID uses three gain variables to determine the actuator variable, according to an error between control variable and set point. The proportional gain more reaction), the integral gain gain
Kp
(more error
Ki
(more error
faster reaction) and the dierential
Kd
(faster error
more reaction):
yp (t) = Kp e(t) yi (t) = Ki yd (t) = Kd e(t)dt
(7.1) (7.2)
de(t) dt y = yp + yi + yd
(7.3) (7.4)
In case of only one active element per blade, the optimal gains can be found by applying a tuning method like the
Ziegler-Nichols
tuning rule. The system reaction on a step
function is monitored while increasing the proportional gain
Kp
from zero (Ki
0)
until system gets instable. After the ultimate gain
Ku
and the oscillation
= Kd = period Tu
are found, the gains of the PID controller gains are determined as follows:
Kp = 0.6Ku Ku Ki = 2 Tu Kp Tu Kd = 8
(7.5) (7.6)
(7.7)
A step system reaction can be simulated by using a inow wind speed drop dened in a hub-height wind le for AeroDyn (see [27]).
A problem arises when using more than one active element per blade. As the control variables are blade dependent, a change from a rst actuator, has an inuence on the performance of a second. The heuristic tuning rule can not be applied anymore, as a new set of gains for one active element would change the optimal gains for another. To nd a global optimum for all the gains of all active elements, a simple sweep loop could be applied, similar to the one described above. All the possible gain variations of the controllers could be tested and compared with each other. This would yield in an enormous computational eort. To reduce computational time, a more intelligent
7 QBladeAE
49
way, like an optimization strategy as described in [45]. In QBladeAE, there is no tuning method built in and the user has to specify all controller gains manually.
7.2 Blade related simulation parameters

The geometrical blade representation in AeroDyn and the structural blade related parameters for YawDyn need to be specied for a simulation. As described in 4.1 a blade has one ap degree of freedom and is represented by a sti beam and a hingespring model. QBladeAE automatically determines default values for the blade related parameters, which are described in the following.
7.2.1 QBlade and NREL blade format

The blade representation in QBlade and in AeroDyn diers, as can be seen in Figure 7.8. In QBlade a blade is dened by sections, whose radius is measured from the Additionally each section has a value for the chord length and center of rotation.
the twist angle. In AeroDyn the blade is represented by elements. The radius of the element (RELM) is the distance between the blade-hub connection and the center of the element. Each element then has a length (DR), a chord length and a twist angle.
Rright,5 Rleft,5
y x QBlade
RH
y x
DR5
AeroDyn
RELM5
Figure 7.8:
ELM#5
Dierent blade denition in QBlade and NREL format.
The single elements are two-dimensional extrusions and have constant properties over their length. The values for the chord and the twist are interpolated between two sections. The blade geometric conversion from QBlade in AeroDyn implicates that the last section dened in QBlade can not be represented in AeroDyn.
7 QBladeAE
50
7.2.2 Blade mass

As mentioned above, the blade is assumed to have a uniform mass distribution. In order to approximate the blade mass relation is used:
mblade
as a function of the blade radius, the following
mblade (R) = 1.7 R2.3
(7.8)
This empirical approximation is derived from real blade parameters shown in Figure 7.9.
30000
f(x) = 1.7*x2.3 real blade masses
25000
20000 blade mass [kg]
15000
10000
5000
0 20 30 40 blade length [m] 50 60
Figure 7.9:
Dierent blade masses over blade length and the used exponential approximation function [51].
In YawDyn the blade mass is referred to as
BM .
7.2.3 Blade center of gravity

The blade center of gravity is calculated by approximating the blade elements (QBlade format) to be truncated cones, as illustrated in Figure 7.10. The two rectangles of the cone have the same surface area chord lengths
An
and
An+1
as the two airfoils shapes and the same
cn
and
cn+1 .
Hence the heights of the rectangles
hn
and
hn+1
can be
7 QBladeAE
51
z y x
Rn
An An+1 cn cn+1
hn
ELM#i COGi,real
An Rn cn cn+1 hn+1 COGxi,approx DR An+1
Figure 7.10:
Simplied geometric representation (rectangular cone) of a homogeneous blade section for the calculation of the blade center of gravity.
determined. The element center of gravity and can be calculated with
cogx,i
is referred to as
RB
within YawDyn
cogx,i = Rn +
DR cn hn + cn hn+1 + cn+1 hn + 3cn+1 hn+1 2 2cn hn + cn hn+1 + cn+1 hn + 2cn+1 hn+1
(7.9)
and the element volume is given as
Vi = DR
By weighting the element center of gravity blade center of gravity
An + An+1 2 cogx,i
with the element volume
(7.10)
Vi ,
the total
cogx,blade
can be calculated using
cogx,blade =
N ELM cogx,i i=1 N ELM Vi i=1
Vi
(7.11)
The uniform density of the blade can determined with
blade =
mblade Vblade
(7.12)
Only the center of gravity in x-direction (spanwise direction) is computed. The distance between the center of gravity and the z-axis is neglected. Furthermore the COG distance in y-direction is not needed, as YawDyn only reads the mass moment of inertia for the rotation about the ap axis (y-axis).
7 QBladeAE
52
7.2.4 Blade mass moment of inertia

Similar to the assumptions made above, the mass moment of inertia ap axis can be calculated using
Jf lap
about the
N ELM
N ELM
Jf lap =
i=1
neglecting the distance of
mi
2 (cogx,i
2 cogz,i )
=
i=1
2 Vi blade cogx,i
(7.13)
cogz,i .
In YawDyn the mass moment of inertia is named
BLIN ER.
7.2.5 Torsional root spring constant

Another value needed by the structural model, is the torsional spring constant of the equivalent apping hinge spring at the blade root. This value is named
in Figure
4.2 [28]. The parameter denes how sti or soft a blade is modeled. It is not possible to give a general rule of thumb to determine this value and QBladeAE does not automatically give a default value. In order to get a reasonable stiness value, the blade deection under steady wind conditions can be taken as an indicator. [29] a number of modern wind turbines show tip deections of about radius at wind speeds of According to of their blade
8%
15m/s
[2].
As YawDyn does not automatically generate an output for the tip deection, an additional function is implemented in QBladeAE. The tip deection from the ap angle
T Dblade
is derived
of the blade and given as
T Dblade = Rblade sin
(7.14)
7.2.6 Dynamic stall parameters

Next to the structural blade related parameters, AeroDyn needs additional aerodynamic information for the semi-empirical dynamic stall model (if enabled). QBladeAE automatically calculates the necessary inputs, which are derived from the airfoil polars and stored in the airfoil les for AeroDyn. These are
Zero lift angle of attack: slope for zero lift:
0cl
cn
cn (0cl )
7 QBladeAE
53
cn cn
at stall value for positive angle of attack: at stall value for negative angle of attack:
cn (+stall ) cn (stall )
Angle of attack for minimum Minimum
cd : cd,min
cd
value:
cd,min
Only the
Most of the parameters can be directly derived from the polar tables. detection of the stall angles
+stall
and
have a reliable stall indicator, the cl/cd over
stall needs further investigation. In order to is used. As can be seen in Figure 7.11
This clear characteristic can be used
the rst stall eects occurring on the airfoil are visible as two peaks. This is when the drag rapidly increases due to ow separation.
in an automated numerical algorithm to detect the positive and negative stall angles reliably.
cn cl/cd
200
1.5 150 1 100 0.5 cl/cd
cn
50
-0.5 0 -1 -50 -1.5
-2 -180
-150
-120
-90
-60
-30
30
60
90
120
150
-100 180
Figure 7.11:
cl Dynamic stall related parameter using cd -curve for automatically detecting the critical static stall angle stall .
To approximate the proposed in [27].
cn
slope for zero lift
cn (0cl )
a least square method is used, as
7 QBladeAE
54
Figure 7.12:
QBladeAE active blade design module.
It shall be noted, that the active elements have no eect on the dynamic stall model. As there is no proper aerodynamic formulation, it might be necessary to switch of the dynamic stall model, when simulating a blade with active elements. If the actuators are only positioned in the outer region of the blade, a negative blade pitch angle might ensure, that there are no stall eects in the blade tip region.
7.3 Program modules

The following section gives a short overview of the four program modules used in QBladeAE.
7.3.1 Blade design with active elements

In the active blade design menu (Figure 7.12), a new blade equipped with active elements can be created. Therefore, a blade design from QBlade must be available. Next to the 3D-visualization of the blade the geometric parameters are displayed in a spreadsheet (QBlade format).
The
Active Element
group allows the denition of new active ow control devices.
The actuator parameters are specied in a separate dialog. These are
7 QBladeAE
55
Active Element Type
The type of the active element species it's name and the type
of unit used for the representation of the MulTabLoc. For example a ap device has the table ID unit the unit
[deg] for the ap angle, a boundary layer suction device has
[ /s]
m3
for the volumetric ow rate. Despite that, the correct setting of
the type and unit is not obligatory and does not change the calculation results.
Dimension
The starting and end position of the active element expressed in the Only dedicated sections can be used for the start and
QBlade blade format.
end point of an active element.
Control Type
be
The setting denes the control type of the active element. It can either for the optimization loop or
LOOP
PID
for the PID controller. If there are
more than one active element, this setting is the same for all. The control types can not be mixed.
Control Variable
and
The control variable which can be selected depend on the controller
type. For the optimization loop the blade element dependent parameters
DFN
DFT
can be selected. This is the element normal force and the element tan-
gential force. For the PID controller, the blade dependent parameters
FlapRate,
FlapAngle
moment).
AFMB can be selected. This is the blade ap rate, the blade deection angle and the out-of-plane root bending moment (axial ap bending
and As can be seen in Equation 7.14 the blade deection angle and the blade tip deection are synonymous.
Set point
Set point for the controller. Depending on the selected control variable, the
units are either
[kN ], [kN m], [deg]
or
[].
The unit depends on the
Actuator speed Min Max Range
This is the
maximum actuator speed.
used active element type. For a ap device the unit would be deg/s. The operational range of the actuator can be limited. The range
specied here can not be bigger than the limits dened in the specic multiple airfoil tables.
Kp , Ki , Kd PID ).
The proportional, integral and derivative gain for the PID controller (only
7 QBladeAE
56
Delay
The time delay in
[ms]
between sensor data acquisition and actuator response.
The values must be bigger than the simulation time step and is rounded to integer multiples of the simulation time step (only
PID ).
Step size
This is the step size for the optimization control loop expressed in active
element type dependent units. The smaller the step size the higher the controller accuracy but the longer the simulation time (only
LOOP ).
Sensor position
The sensor position denes the blade element from which the opti-
mization loop takes the control variable. If for example an active element covers the blade element ber
10, 11
and
12
and the sensor position is set to element numThe control loop determines
11,
only this element will perform optimally.
the optimal actuator variable by comparing the control variable of this element with the set point. The adjacent elements only follow the sensor element (only
LOOP ).
7.3.2 Aerodynamic representation of active elements

In this module the variable aerodynamic characteristics of an active element are dened. The inputs specied here are the basis for the AeroDyn airfoil les with multiple polar tables. For each airfoil which is covered by an active element, a set of polars can be added. Next to the multiple polars, the element needs a so-called mother-polar. This is a
360 -polar
which was generated within QBlade. In addition to the mother-polar,
several child-polars can be added. These child polars can be either generated within the XFLR5 module, or be imported. For the angle of attack range which is not specied in the child-polar the coecients from it's
360 -mother-polar
are automatically taken
over. This assumption can be be made, as the airfoil characteristics are similar for very high and very low angles of attack but the user can change all the polars manually as well. Note that the polars can have dierent step sizes in the angle of attack range. By adding child-polars to a mother-polar, the step size is automatically adapted, using a liner interpolation. Once the child-polars are generated, the single values of the polar can be edited manually, but single points shall
not
be deleted.
For each polar, which is added to the airfoil of the active element, a MulTabLocvalues (table ID for the multiple airfoil tables) has to be specied.
7 QBladeAE
57
Figure 7.13:
QBladeAE multiple aerodynamic polar module.
7.3.3 Wind eld simulation

The wind eld model of QBladeAE (Figure 7.14) is based on the Veers model [54] and calculates correlated wind eld les for the x-direction. shear layer representation via a surface roughness length It includes an atmospheric
z0 .
For 3D-visualization the
the freely available Qt/OpenGl based C/C++ programming library QwtPlot3D is used.
As a turbulent inow eld can easily be generated with the more sophisticated TurbSim, the wind eld module of QBladeAE is only implemented in a beta version and will not be discussed any further.
7.3.4 Aeroelastic simulation

In the aeroelastic module of QBladeAE (Figure 7.15) all the necessary input for the NREL routines AeroDyn ans YawDyn are provided. The user can select the available (active) wings and dene the parameters for the aerodynamic and the structural model in separate dialogs. The blade dependent parameters described above are automatically updated once a new blade is selected.
After the inputs are dened, QBladeAE automatically starts YawDynAE as an external process and reads in the generated outputs, once the simulation is nished
7 QBladeAE
58
Figure 7.14:
QBladeAE wind eld generator module (beta).
Figure 7.15:
QBladeAE aeroelastic simulation module.
7 QBladeAE
59
successfully. QBladeAE automatically creates and organizes a folder structure on the local hard drive.
For the visualization of the results, four dynamic 2D-graphs are used. They can be used to plot the rotor parameters generated from YawDyn (yawdyn.plt) and the results are stored in the output le from AeroDyn (element.plt). The blade element dependent results can be either plotted over time (for a xed element) or over the radial blade position (for a xed time step). In addition to that, the graphs can show the active element dependent parameters as well. This is the actuator operation point and the actuator speed over time.
A TurbSim dialog helps to dene TurbSim input les for the generation of turbulent wind eld les.
Part III Simulation
This part gives the results of an exemplary simulation of a wind turbine blade, which is equipped with active elements. It is more meant to be a description of how to approach the set up and use of a simulation with QBladeAE, rather than a complete scientic investigation. Before simulating a blade with active elements, a standard wind turbine simulation is performed. The behavior of the aeroelastic model and the sensibility to changes of specic key input parameters is shown. A nal test case is derived which will then be used for a simulation using one and more than one active ow control elements.
8.1 Turbine and blade model

A ctive turbine of the
2.5MW
class will be used for the simulation. For simplica-
tion the turbine operates at a xed rotational speed of
15rpm,
as YawDyn can not be
used for a variable speed turbine simulation. The turbine is a conventional 3-bladed upwind turbine and has a rotor diameter of simulation are shown in Table 8.1.
89m.
The other parameters used for the
62
Table 8.1:
Parameter
Hub radius
Turbine parameters used for the simulation.
Symbol Value
PN D lblade Rhub PC
-
Nominal power Rotor diameter Blade length Rotor tilt angle Blade precone angle Power regulation Rotational speed (xed) Tip speed Number of blades Nominal wind speed Cut-in wind speed Cut-out wind speed Hub height
2500kW 89m 43.3m 1.2m 4 2

pitch
n R B vN vin vout HH
15rpm 70m/s 3 m/s 13 3.5m/s 25m/s 89m
The blades have a length lblade of
43.3m.
The geometric shape of the blade created
with QBlade is shown in Figure 8.1. It has a limited twist of
12
in the root region
and is linearly tapered. The blade design is shown in Table A.2.
Figure 8.1:
3D view of blade
According to the assumptions described in 7.2, the structural blade parameters are computed automatically by QBladeAE. The necessary blade parameters are the blade mass, the distance of the center of gravity to the blade hinge axis and the mass moment of inertia for the rotation about the ap axis. The values for the simulation are shown in Table 8.2.
63
Table 8.2:
Parameter
Blade mass
Blade structural parameters used for the simulation.
Symbol
mblade cogx,blade Jf lap FS
Value
Distance to center of gravity Flap mass moment of inertia Root spring stiness (no default value)
9840kg 10.6m 6 1.89 10 kgm2 2.2 107 Nm/rad
As mentioned in 7.2.5, another blade structural input parameter is the torsional spring constant of the equivalent apping hinge spring at the blade root. To determine this value, a rule of thumb is used: as stated in [2], a usual blade deection at steady inow is about
15m/s
8%
of the blade length. As the turbine already pitches at this
wind speed, a parameter variation of the spring constant is performed at 8.2 shows the blade tip deection for three dierent stinesses. deection of about constant of
13m/s.
Figure
The resulting tip
3m (6.5%
of blade length) seems reasonable and therefore a spring
2.2
107 Nm/rad is used.
FS = 1.0 106 Nm/rad FS = 2.2 106 Nm/rad FS = 4.0 106 Nm/rad
Blade tip deflection [m]
0 0 10 20 30 40 Time [s] 50 60 70 80 90
Figure 8.2:
Blade tip deection with three dierent root spring stinesses. The wind inow is steady and constant over the whole rotor disk.
64
8.2 Blade validation

The geometric blade denition in QBlade and QBladeAE diers, as described in 7.2.1. To estimate the dierence between the two blade descriptions, a steady state rotor performance simulation using QBlade is compared to the power output obtained with several YawDynAE simulations. The comparison shows the inuence of the blade
translation from QBlade- to NREL-format. For the comparison, the turbine model in YawDynAE has to be simplied: the tower and the blades are considered as rigid, so no structural deections occur. The rotor tilt and pre-cone angle is set to zero. The inow model in AeroDyn is set to the
EQUIL-option
(BEM), with a
Prantl
tip- and
hub-loss model. For the dierent wind speeds a totally uniform and constant inow (no shear layer) is assumed. As can be seen in Figure 8.3 the results match up very well.
3000 QBlade YawDynAE 2500
2000
P [kW]
1500
1000
500
0 0 5 10 v [m/s] 15 20 25
Figure 8.3:
Rotor power over wind speed calculated with QBlade and QBladeAE.
Note that modeled turbine is pitch regulated. QBlade automatically calculates the necessary blade pitch angles level of
to keep the power output at the rated nominal power
2500kW
if the wind speed exceeds the nominal wind speed of
13m/s.
This pitch
angle is then used as well in YawDynAE. Figure 8.4 shows the used pitch angle over the wind speed.
65
30 Blade pitch
25
20
b [deg]
15
10
0 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 v [m/s] 19 20 21 22 23 24 25
Figure 8.4:
Blade pitch over wind speed for power regulation.
8.3 Dynamic stall eects

As mentioned in 3.2.3 AeroDyn features a dynamic stall model. The use of active elements change the aerodynamic behavior of the airfoil and thus the semi-empirical derived dynamic stall model might not be valid any more. To avoid any stall related phenomena for the active simulation, the blade is pitched towards lower angles of attack. This ensures that the outer region of the blade (where the active elements will be positioned) operate in the attached-ow region during the whole simulation. Figure 8.5 shows the inuence of the dynamic stall model with a pitch angle of
b = 0 .
The
bottom graph shows the angle of attack distribution over the blade at a specic instant of time. It indicates that also the blade outer regions operate under stalled conditions, as the angle of attack already exceeds the value for the static stall angle of attack. Logically, the eect of the dynamic stall phenomenon can be seen in the top graph, where the blade deection over the simulation time is shown. The eect of dynamic stall leads to higher blade deections, as the maximum aerodynamic forces which occur are higher. The slopes of the blade deection curve are also higher due to the rapid lift break-in after maximum lift.
4.0 3.5 blade tip deflection [m] 3.0 2.5 2.0 1.5 1.0 0.5 0.0 0 10 20 30 40 50 Time [s] 60 70 80 90 STEADY BEDDOES
66
45.0 40.0 35.0 {/Symbol a} [deg] 30.0 25.0 20.0 15.0 10.0 5.0 0.0 0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45 radial position [m] STEADY BEDDOES
Figure 8.5:
Inuence of the dynamic stall model on the blade tip deection over time and the angle of attack over radial position for the blade with a pitch angle of b = 0 .
On the contrary, a simulation with a blade pitch angle of
b = 5
almost eliminates
the eects of dynamic stall. As can be seen in Figure 8.6, the angles of attack along the blade are reduced and the outer blade region now operates in the attached ow region. The power output for the pitched blades is logically reduced.
The eect of a the apping exible ap is currently only modeled by jumping from one static polar table to the other. As can not be foreseen which inuence the apping has on the dynamic stall model, it is switched o for all further simulations. Although the pitched blade ensures a exible ap operation in the attached ow region for most of the time, it has to be noted, that the apping itself generates unsteady eects, just like blade pitching in the attached ow region (3.2.3). These dynamic eects are not modeled by the software.
3.5 3.0 blade tip deflection [m] 2.5 2.0 1.5 1.0 0.5 0.0 -0.5 0 10 20 30 40 time [s] 45.0 40.0 35.0 {/Symbol a} [deg] 30.0 25.0 20.0 15.0 10.0 5.0 0.0 0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45 radial position [m] STEADY BEDDOES 50 60 70 80 90 STEADY BEDDOES
67
Figure 8.6:
Inuence of the dynamic stall model on the blade tip deection over time and the angle of attack over radial position for the blade with a pitch angle of b = 5 .
8.4 Yawed turbine

One of the key features of YawDyn is to model a yawed turbine and the opportunity shall not be missed to show the inuence of dierent yaw conditions. YawDyn provides dierent models, which include free yaw, xed yaw or yawing with a constant rate. As the necessary parameters like yaw-stiness, -damping and -friction are dicult to evaluate, the turbine is only modeled with a xed yaw model. Only dierent yaw angles are regarded. Figure 8.7 shows the eect of three dierent yaw angles on the blade tip deection. However, for the further simulations a yaw angle of
is used.
4 0 yaw angle 2 yaw angle 10 yaw angle 3.5
68
blade tip deflection [m]
2.5
1.5
1 0 10 20 30 40 time [s] 50 60 70 80 90
Figure 8.7:
Blade tip deection for dierent yaw angles.
8.5 Wind eld

The GUI interface for TurbSim is used to create a turbulent inow eld for the further simulations. An IEC
Kaimal -spectrum is used, with a turbulence intensity of 15%.

a hub height of of
The
mean wind speed is set to with a power law
13m/s at exponent PLExp
89m.
The shear layer is simulated
0.2
and a surface roughness length of
z0 = 0.03.
This wind le will be used for all the further simulations. The wind speed time series at the hub height is shown in Figure 8.8.
15
69
14
13
wind speed [m/s]
12
11
10
7 0 10 20 30 40 time [s] 50 60 70 80 90
Figure 8.8:
Turbulent wind speed time series in x-direction at a hub height of 89m and a mean wind speed of 13ms.
8.6 Baseline simulation

After combing all the aforementioned model inputs and assumptions, a baseline test case is derived. All the simulations will be performed using these default values, unless stated otherwise. The basic results of the simulation can be seen in Figure 8.9. The simulation at a constant rotational speed includes atmospheric turbulence and shear layer, blade-tower interaction, skewed inow with an unsteady inow model (GDW), tilted hub with pre-coned and pitched blades. Note that the out-of plane bending
moment has the same curve progression as the blade tip deection. This is due to the simple structural blade representation in YawDyn (4.1).
70
16 wind speed [m/s] thrust [kN] power [kW] o-p bending moment [kNm] blade deflection [m] 14 12 10 8 6 350
300
250
200 3000
2000
1000 3000
2000
1000 4
1 0 10 20 30 40 time [s] 50 60 70 80 90
Figure 8.9:
Results of baseline simulation.
9 AFC simulation
This chapter describes a simulation using a blade, which is equipped with active elements. As an example, a form-exible trailing edge device (exible ap) is used. As mentioned above, this work does not claim to be a complete scientic investigation. The following investigation shall rather demonstrate the performance of QBladeAE.
The exible airfoil structure was intensively investigated by Smart Blade GmbH in the past and experimental wind tunnel data are available [41]. The aps are actuated with pneumatic "muscles", which contract by applying air pressure. The aps can
be deected in both, upwards direction (negative deection) and downwards direction (positive deection). The baseline airfoil is a DU-96-W-180 and the shapes for for
dierent ap deections are shown in Figure 9.1 and 9.2. The test wing in the wind tunnel experiment had a chord of
0.6m
with both the rigid and exible trailing edge
segments thus achieving a similar Re of
1, 300, 000.
Figure 9.1:
Overlapping airfoil contours for positive deection. Red: The original DU-96-W-180 airfoil; Green: slightly deected exible ap; Red: fully deected exible ap [41].
The apping part has a chord length of
25%
and the maximum apping range is
20
. The maximum actuator speed is
20 /s.
9 AFC simulation
72
Figure 9.2:
Overlapping airfoil contours for negative deection. Red: The original DU-96-W-180 airfoil; Green: slightly deected exible ap; Red: fully deected exible ap [41].
A ap deection induces changes in the circulation, and thus the aerodynamic characteristics of the airfoil areb changed. In the wind tunnel measurements at the of
GroWiKa
TU Berlin
the performance of the exible-form airfoil was determined. The eect
on the lift and drag coecients can be seen in Figure 9.3. The overall change in the lift coecient is about drag value.
cl = 2.
On the other side, any ap deection increases the
2.0
0.2 neutral position slight neg. deflection full neg. deflection slight pos. deflection full pos. deflection 0.2
1.5
1.0
0.5
0.2 cd 0.1 0.1 -10 -5 0 5 10 15 20 0.0 -15
0.0
cl
-0.5
-1.0
-1.5
-2.0 -15
-10
-5
10
15
20
Figure 9.3:
Lift and drag coecient over angle of attack cl () for exible ap at four ap angles.
Using the airfoil extrapolation method of QBlade (3.2.2),
360 -polars
were derived,
which can be seen in Figure 9.4. The lift and drag values for a dierent ap deections
9 AFC simulation
are assumed to be the same for angles of attack higher than
73
28
and lower than
11 .
2 neutral position slight neg. deflection full neg. deflection slight pos. deflection full pos. deflection
1.5
0.5
cl
-0.5
-1
-1.5
-2 -150 -100 -50 0 50 100 150
Figure 9.4:
Extrapolated 360 cl -polar.
9.1 Flap parameter study

In this section a blade with dierent ap congurations is investigated. If not explicitly mentioned, the PID controller is used for all simulations, with the ap rate as control variable and a set point of zero. The default performance parameters of exible ap are a range of
20
and a maximum actuator speed of
20/s.
A small parameter inves-
tigation shows the inuence of dierent ap positions, ap sizes and number of aps as well as an investigation of the operational range, the maximum speed and the delay of the actuator. All the controller gains are found manually for each conguration and therefore an optimal controller tuning can not be ensured. However, the actuator rate and range limit provides a robust controller tuning in most cases.
For the comparison of the dierent potentials for load reduction, the standard devi-
9 AFC simulation
ation
74
is taken as indicator. It is dened as:
1 n1
(xi x)2
i=1
(9.1)
The load reduction is expressed as percentage of the standard deviation line simulation:
of the base-
=1
i 0
(9.2)
For the parametric investigation, the outer part of the blade is divided in nine equidistant parts of
1.5m,
as can be seen in Figure 9.5. These sections, and combinations of
each other, will be modeled as active in the following simulations.
DU-96-W-180
9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
1.5m 43.25m
Figure 9.5:
Blade with 9 equidistant outer sections.
According to the NREL blade format, the radial position of the sections is shown in Table 9.1. According to the convention, and the center of the element and
r is the distance between blade-hub connection

is the element length.
DR
Some of the following simulations are as well performed to compare them with the results obtained in [2], in which the performance of trailing edge aps was investigated. The comparisson is used as well as a possibility to validate the obtained results.
9.1.1 Flap positions

Several simulations are performed using a single
1.5m
ap at dierent spanwise posi-
tions. All the nine positions investigated independently. This investigation shows the optimal spanwise position for the ap. The load reduction ing moment can be seen in Table 9.2. The highest
on the out-of plane bendreduction with about 14% have the
9 AFC simulation
75
Table 9.1:
AE# r [m]
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 41.75 40.25 38.75 37.25 35.75 34.25 32.75 31.25 29.75
Radial position of the 9 possible active elements.

r/R
[%]
DR m
1.5 1.5 1.5 1.5 1.5 1.5 1.5 1.5 1.5
[ ]
DR/R
[%]
96.5 93.1 89.6 86.1 82.7 79.2 75.8 72.3 68.8
3.5 3.5 3.5 3.5 3.5 3.5 3.5 3.5 3.5
active elements at position
AE# 2 and AE# 3.
This is around r/R
= 92% of the blade
length. The more outer sections have a smaller chord and the more inner elements a smaller radial velocity, which both lower their inuence on the total blade forces.
Table 9.2:
Load reduction for 1.5m ap at dierent radial positions.
AE#
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
AF M B kNm
274.6 239.6 237.2 237.4 238.3 239.7 241.3 242.9 244.8 246.8
%
0.0 12.7 13.7 13.5 13.2 12.7 12.1 11.6 10.9 10.1
[ ]
Default
Figure 9.6 points out the relation between ap position and load reduction. Compared to the investigation in [2], the results correspond well.
9 AFC simulation
14
76
reduction in out-of-plane bending moment [%]
13
12
11
10
9 65 70 75 80 r/R [%] 85 90 95 100
Figure 9.6:
Load reduction of a single ap with a length of 1.5m at dierent radial positions.
9.1.2 Flap size

This section investigates the inuence of the ap size. Three sections or more at a time are modeled as one active element. This yields in a ap length of
4.5m, 9m, 10.5m,

on
12m
and
13.5m
respectively. The positions of the aps are varied again, and nally
all sections form
AE# 1 9
are simulated as one single ap. The reduction in
the out-of plane bending moment is listed in Table 9.3. It can be seen, that the load reduction gets bigger, with increasing ap length, although the reduction potential is not linearly growing. For small aps, the reduction is around aps reach
28%,
the medium sized
38% 44%
and the big aps up to
50%.
In accordance with the results of
the previous section, an outer position of the ap is preferable.
Finally Figure 9.7 summarizes the results and shows the load reduction of the ap wise root bending moment for all previous simulations. A comparison with [2] again shows the correlation between the results. Although the potentials for load reduction are of the same magnitude, it has to be noted that the denition of the load reduction given in this document, diers from the one in the cited report.
9 AFC simulation
77
Table 9.3:
Load reduction for dierent ap lengths and dierent radial positions.
AE#
123 456 789
DR m
4.5 4.5 4.5 9.0 9.0 10.5 10.5 10.5 12.0 12.0 13.5
[ ]
AF M B kNm
274.6 193.7 196.9 205.6 152.8 169.1 135.2 136.9 145.8 138.4 137.6 131.4
%
0.0 29.5 28.8 25.1 44.4 38.4 50.8 50.1 46.9 49.6 49.9 52.1
[ ]
Default
123456 456789 1234567 2345678 3456489 12345678 23456789 123456789
To have an understanding of how the out-of-plane bending moment is inuenced by the active elements, Figure 9.8 shows the out-of-plane root bending moments for the baseline simulations and the one for the single reduction of about
13.5m
ap, with the maximum load
52%.
9 AFC simulation
78
50 reduction in out-of-plane root bending moment [%]
40
30
20
10
0 0 2 4 6 8 flap length [m] 10 12 14
Figure 9.7:
Load reduction of single aps with dierent lengths and dierent radial positions.
2400 baseline 13.5m flap 2200 out-of-plane bending moment blade1 [kNm]
2000
1800
1600
1400
1200
1000
800
600 0 10 20 30 40 time [s] 50 60 70 80 90
Figure 9.8:
Out-of-plane bending moment for baseline simulation and the single 13.5m aps with maximum load reduction.
9 AFC simulation
79
9.1.3 Actuator speed and range

The software makes it easy as well, to change the operational range and the maximum speed of the actuator. The standard exible ap described above has a range of and a speed of
20
20/s.
Generally it can be said, that if a ap has a high range it needs
as well a certain speed, in order to make use of this range. If the ap is too slow, it is not able to reach it's extreme positions within one rotor revolution. In this case the actuator speed is the limiting parameter. On the other hand, if the ap is too fast, the additional gain is low, as the ap range becomes the limiting factor. Figure 9.9 shows the inuence of dierent actuator speeds for the the
4.5m
ap (123) and the
9m
ap
(123456). It shows, that for the specic simulation conditions (15rpm), the ap speed of
20/s
is sucient.
50 4.5m flap (123) 9m flap (123456) reduction in out-of-plane bending moment {/Symbol c} [%] 45 40 35 30 25 20 15 10 5 0 0 10 20 30 actuator speed [deg/s] 40 50 60
Figure 9.9:
Inuence of dierent actuator speeds on the load reduction for two ap congurations.
The overall ap length has a big inuence on the parameters as well. The bigger the ap, the the smaller the range of the ap has to be. In order to investigate the inuence of the two actuator parameters in combination, the
9m
ap (123456) was exemplary
modied in the range and speed. Figure 9.10 shows the dependencies of the absolute ap range (it is assumed that the ap can be equally deected in positive as well as negative direction) and the ap speed on the load reduction. It can be seen, that a
9 AFC simulation
ap with a limited ap range of to the maximal possible
80
15
can still achieve a reduction of
45%
compared
49%,
but provides a simpler structural design.
efficient flap configuration
50 45 40 35 30 25 20 15 10 5 0
40 35 30 25 20 actuator range [deg] abs. 15 10 10 15 20 5 25 30 0 actuator speed [deg/s]
Figure 9.10:
Inuence of dierent actuator ranges and speeds on the load reduction for a 9m ap conguration.
The simulation above makes the assumption that the range of deection in positive and negative direction is the same. In other words, a ap with the proposed absolute deection of
30 ,
has a deection of
15 .
For further structural simplications of
the ap, a non-equal deection range can be taken into account as well. Figure 9.11 indicates, that the ap deects slightly more in positive direction, than in negative direction.
These results are only valid for the examined case and all the other relevant cases have to be examined as well, but it shows the potential of the software. computation time of about The short
10s
per simulation makes it possible to investigate sev-
eral congurations and parameters and the software helps to nd an optimal actuator conguration, where the actuator size is harmonized with the actuator rate and the actuator speed.
9 AFC simulation
15
81
10
5 flap angle [deg]
-5
-10
-15 0 10 20 30 40 time [s] 50 60 70 80 90
Figure 9.11:
Flap angle for 9m ap over simulation time.
9.1.4 Sensor delay

In all the previous simulations it was assumed that the measured control variable is processed by the controller without delay and the actuator can respond instantaneously. The introduction of a delay between sensor data acquisition and the ap response has a signicant inuence on the potential for load reduction. Dierent time delays were simulated for the of load
9m ap with the sections AE# 1 9. Figure 9.12 shows the decrease reduction potential with increasing time delay. A delay of only 5ms reduced
the potential by half.
9.1.5 Multiple aps

Until now, only adjacent sections have been apped. The question arises what happens, if a ap is split into two or more parts. The simulation of multiple and independent aps on one wing with the PID controller, is not scope of this work. The manual
controller tuning for two and more aps is demanding and using the gains from the previous simulations did not yield in a higher load reduction than for a single ap. This is not consistent with the results, which were found in other investigations, like [2]. With the use of multiple aps, the total length of the apping sections could be
9 AFC simulation
45
82
40 reduction in out-of-plane bending moment [%]
35
30
25
20
15
10
5 0 5 10 15 20 25 controller delay [ms] 30 35 40
Figure 9.12:
Load reduction over controller time delay.
reduced to obtain the same load reduction as for a big single ap.
9.2 Optimization loop

As described above, it is not trivial to nd the optimal controller gains for multiple aps. Each actuator inuences the blade dependent control parameters individually (ap rate, ap angle, out-of-plane bending moment) but they are not independent from each other. A more sophisticated controller or a (intelligent) tuning sweep has to be used.
Another approach to investigate the advantage of multiple active elements is the use of the optimization loop. As described in 7.1.1, a local blade element control variable is used for the controller. In this case it is the local blade element normal force
DF N .
The loop does not represent a real controller, as it simply calculates all possible ap angles for a time step and then chooses the optimal one. Another drawback is, that keeping the local blade element force constant does not mean, that the uctuation of the out-of plane bending moment is minimized. On the other hand, a concept of several independent actuators, which only have local control variables has advantages as well.
9 AFC simulation
83
Multiple actuators with more simple integrated sensor-controller units can be used as a modular concept for active ow control. The sensor could measure, for example, the local angle of attack, which couples the local inow velocity directly to a trailing edge ap angle. Then each ap works for it's own, yielding in a less powerful but also less complex and modular system.
To show the potential of this concept, a simulation with all sections form
AE# 1 9
being individually active is performed. This represents a conguration, in which each actuator has it's own sensor and controller. The load reduction is in Table 9.4. In contrary, a single ap including the sections sensor at section
44%, as can be seen AE# 1 9 with only one
AE# 3,
shows the same eect.
Table 9.4:
AE#
Default 123456789 123456789
Load reduction for individual sections using the optimization loop.
Ctrl. Type
PID
DR m
13.5 13.5
[ ]
AF M B kNm
274.6 131.4 155.1 155.5
%
0.0 52.1 43.6 43.7
[ ]
LOOP (9 sensors) LOOP (1 sensor @
1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8-9
AE# 3)
13.5
In Figure 9.13 the element normal force for active element number
AE# 3
is shown
for the three congurations listed above. It can be seen, that the optimization loop keeps the element force at a constant value of about
2900kNm.
Next to the normal
force of the baseline simulation, the element force from the PID controlled single ap is shown as well. It has to be noted, that the optimization loop does not represent a real controller. The results have to be seen as ideal. The reason for the uctuation of the normal force in Figure 9.13 is the step size of the control loop. For the simulation the step size is set to no uctuation at all.
1 .
If the step size of the loop is small enough, there would be
The approach of keeping the local blade element force constant, shows less potential in the reduction of the blade root bending moment than blade PID control approach. Additionally, there is not a big gain in using multiple sensors for individually controlled elements. This result has to be examined in more detailed investigations.
9 AFC simulation
5000 baseline PID: 13.5m flap LOOP: 9x1.5m flap 4500 blade element normal force DFN of AE#3 [kNm]
84
4000
3500
3000
2500
2000
1500
1000 0 10 20 30 40 time [s] 50 60 70 80 90
Figure 9.13:
Local blade element force DF N at AE# 3 for the baseline, the single PID controlled 13.5m ap and the multiple individually optimization loop controlled aps.
The parametric investigation presented here shall only demonstrate the potential and the limitation of the software. investigations. It is the initial step for further, more detailed
10 Suggestions for future research

The current software provides the possibility to estimate the performance of dierent active ow control devices on wind turbine blades. Now dierent active ow concepts have to be investigated in more detail and compared with each other.
In a second step, a better model representation has to be implemented. Especially the oversimplied structural wind turbine and blade model of YawDyn has to be improved. The following list gives an overview about possible further steps:
Structural model:
To simulate the eects of AFC elements on wind turbines in more An enhanced structural
detail, an advanced structural model has to be used.
binding to AeroDyn is FAST [22]. The medium complexity structural model is as well provided by NREL and features and the possibility to include wind turbine operational control. Useful information on FAST can be found in [23], [20] and [21]. An extension called CurveFAST adds a blade torsional degree of freedom and is described in [30].
Aerodynamic model:
As the implementation of actuators for active ow control
changes the physic eects on the ow eld, the aerodynamic models have to be adapted accordingly. If trailing edge aps are used, for example, the implementation of an unsteady aerodynamic model for the attached ow region as described in [1] or [4] might be necessary.
Control:
A more advanced control strategy than the simple PID controller has to be
developed and/or the controller tuning has to be improved in order to simulate multiple aps on a blade.
Noise:
The additional noise, which created by the actuators has to be investigated. The whole range of the dierent wind turbine states of op-
Scope of investigations
eration and load cases has to be investigated.
10 Suggestions for future research
86
Validation:
As only few other investigations have been made, the results have to be
validated against experimental data. Until now, there is no possibility to validate the results properly.
11 Conclusion
A software for the preliminary investigation of dierent active ow concepts for wind turbines has been developed. It is based on the open-source codes The user friendly extension
XFLR5
and
QBlade.
QBladeAE
features a graphical user interface for the use of and
the NREL aeroelastic design codes
AeroDyn
YawDyn.
The user can easily design
wind turbine blades on which dierent active elements can be positioned. The dierent aerodynamic characteristics of the actuators for active ow control are represented by their individual two-dimensional airfoil polars. The NREL FORTRAN routines
were modied and two approaches for the control of the dierent active elements were implemented: a simple PID controller and an optimization loop.
The working principle and the limitation of the software was shown with the simulation of a form exible trailing edge (exible ap). The results show once again the potential of trailing edge devices for load reduction on wind turbine blades: an ideal ap of
13.5m
length on a
apwise bending moment
43m long blade reduced the standard deviation of the root by 52%. The inuence of dierent ap size, ap positions,
numbers, ap speed and ap range has been investigated as well.
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[1] P. B. Anderson. Advanced Load Alleviation for Wind Turbines using Adaptive Trailing Edge Flaps. Sensoring and Control. PhD Report. Roskilde: Riso National Laboratory for Sustainable Energy DTU, 2010. [2] P. B. Anderson. Load Alleviation on Wind Turbine Blades using Variable Airfoil Geometry (2D and 3D study). Sensoring and Control. M.Sc. Thesis. Lyngby: Technical University of Denmark, 2005. [3] C. Bak et al.
Airfoil Characteristics for Wind Turbines.
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A Comparison of Wind Turbine Aeroelastic
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[12] M. Drela.
url:
XFOIL 6.94 User Guide.
Cambridge, Massachusetts: Massachusetts
Institute of Technology, 2001. [13] O. Eisele et al. Experimental Investigation of Dynamic Load Control Strategies Using Active Microaps on Wind Turbine Blades. In:
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Active Load Control Techniques for

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Active Flow Control Technology. Technical Brief.
St. Louis: ASME
Fluids Engineering Division, Washington University, 1998. [26] M. A. Lackner and G. van Kuik. A comparison of smart rotor control approaches using trailing edge aps and individual pitch control. In: pp. 117134. [27] D. Laino and A. C. Hansen.
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2002.
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User's Guide to the Wind Turbine Dynamics Program
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Science of making Torque from Wind. 2004. [30] S. M. Larwood. Dynamic Analysis Tool Development for Advanced Geometry Wind Turbine Blades. Dissertation. Davis: University of California, 2009. [31] J. G. Leishman and T. S. Beddoes. A Semi-Empirical Model for Dynmaic Stall. In: [32]
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J. G. Leishman. Challenges in Modeling the Unsteady Aerodynamics of Wind Turbines. In: Ed. by 21st ASME Wind Energy Sympo-
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Prob Engng Mech
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[34] D. Marten et al. Integration of a wind turbine blade design tool
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D. Marten. Extension of an Aerodynamic Simulator for Wind Turbine Blade Design and Performance Analysis. Diploma Thesis. Berlin: Technische Universitaet Berlin, 2010.
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D.-P. Molenaar. Cost-eective design and operation of variable speed wind turbines. Closing the gap between the control engineering and the wind engineering community. Phd Thesis. Delft: Technische Universiteit Delft, 2003.
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Methods for Root Eect, Tip Eects and Extending the Angle of
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Attack Range to +-180deg with Application to Aerodynamics for Blades on Wind Turbines and Propellors.
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P. J. Moriarty and A. C. Hansen.
AeroDyn Theory Manual. NWTC Design
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Conference Proceedings. Ed. by
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Wind Turbine Post-Stall Airfoil Performance Characteristics

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Renewable Energy Laboratory, 2004. [51] [52] Tembra GmbH. Tembra GmbH.
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Strukturelle und aerodynamische Auslegung eines Rotorblattes mit Active Flow Control (AFC) Elementen in modularer Hybridbauweise. 2010. General Theroy of aerodynamic instability and the mechanism of
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D. G. Wilson et al. Optimized Active Aerodynamic Blade Control for Load Alleviation on Large Wind Turbines. In:
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A Appendix
A.1 QBladeAE input les for YawDynAE
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 AeroDyn SI STEADY NO C _ M DYNIN SWIRL 0.005 PRAND PRAND . ipt file from QbladeAE . and Sim : FINAL . [ SI ] or STEADY ] [ USE C _ M ro NO C _ M] Wing : AD 1 . 5 . Units for input output Dynamic stall model [ BEDDOES moment or Aerodynamic Inflow model pitching [ DYNIN model EQUIL ] [NONE for or W K A E or SWIRL ]
Induction Tip l o s s Hub l o s s
factor
model
Convergence
tolerance ( EQUIL ( EQUIL
induction
factor GTECH, or NONE] or NONE]
model model
only ) only )
[ PRANdtl , [ PRANdtl
w i n d \ s m a p l e_ w i n d f i l e 89.00 0.10 3.00 4.00 1.2250 1 . 5 3 e 05 0.0010 5 Wind Tower Tower Tower Air reference shadow shadow shadow ( hub ) height . velocity deficit .
centerline half width .
reference
point .
density .
KinVisc Time
of
Kinematic for
air
viscosity calculations . Files listed below :
interval
aerodynamic files used .
Number
airfoil
" a i r f o i l s \ c i r c l e _360_ P o l a r . t x t "
21
[ left
out
for
brevity ]
23 24 25
" a i r f o i l s \DU 96 1 8 0 . t x t " W 25 RELM Number Twist DR of blade File elements ID Elem per Data blade
CHOD
27 28
0.75 2.50
0.00 0.00
1.50 2.00
2.19 2.34
1 1
PRINT PRINT
30
[ left
out
for
brevity ]
32 33 34 35
42.40 42.925 43.15 SINGLE
0.00 0.00 0.00
0.80 0.25 0.20
0.68 0.41 0.17
9 9 9
PRINT PRINT PRINT
Listing A.1:
Example aerodyn.ipt input le for QBladeAE simulation
A Appendix
95
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16
NACA
63(3)
218 ,
Reyn #:
360
Polar Mach#: Number 0.1 of ID airfoil parameter used used used used angle for of attack lift for for ( deg ) tables in this file
QBladeAE , 3
3.0 e6
10
0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00
10
Table No No No No
longer longer longer longer lift
3.59 6.35
1.50 6.46
7.03 6.57
Zero Cn Cn Cn
slope at at
zero value value
( dimensionless ) positive negative angle angle ( deg ) of of attack attack
0 . 7 0 0.55 1.09 1.02 0.89 0.60 0.00 0.008 0.00 0.005 0.00 0.008 0.006 0.010
stall stall of
Angle
attack value
for
minimum CD
Minimum CD
180.0 0.04 177.0 0.25

[ left out for
0.04
0.25
0.001 0.012
0.04
0.25
0.006 0.010
18
brevity ]
20 21 22
6.5 7.0 7.5
0.32 0.37 0.43
0.009 0.010 0.010
0.93 0.98 1.03
0.001 0.012 0.012
1.29 1.33 1.36
0.016 0.017 0.018
24
[ left
out
for
brevity ]
26 27
179.0 180.0
0.24 0.04
0.008 0.006
0.24 0.04
0.001 0.001
0.24 0.04
0.008 0.006
Listing A.2:
Example airfoil.ipt input le for QBladeAE simulation

simulation used ( sec ) for integration
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33
YawDyn 90.00 1500 5.00 0.0100 3 0.00
. ipt
file
from
QbladeAE . of the
Time
duration of
Number
azimuth factor
sectors for
Decimation TOLER, Number 0.00 0.00 Rotor Shaft Rotor RPM, Trim of
output
printing ( deg )
solution
tolerance
blades pitch angles ( deg ) from yaw axis to hub ; positive downwind ) (m)
Initial hub tilt
4.00 4.00 2.00

15.00 0.00 FIXED 2.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 HINGE 0.00 0.00 1.2 10.57 9845.00 1.89 e6 2.20 e7 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00
sling angle
( distance ( deg ) ( deg )
precone rotor
angle in
speed
revolutions position yaw
per
minute for Blade 1 down ) ( deg )
PsiInit , Yaw
Initial FREE
rotor or
( zero
Model :
FIXED ( deg )
system
Initial Initial Mass
yaw yaw
angle rate of
( deg / s e c ) about yaw of axis yaw (N m ( kg m^ 2 ) spring sec ) at yaw axis (N m) (N m/ r a d )
moment
inertia += f ,
YawStifstrong YawDamp , yaw
stiffness
damping constant
coefficient friction or
YawFriction , Hub 0.00 0.00 model :
moment
HINGE , flap flap of
TEETER angles rates rotor
RIGID
Initial Initial radius
( deg ) ( deg / s e c )
RHinge , RBar , Mass Mass
hub to
(m) blade c .g. (m)
distance of one
from
hinge
blade of
( kg ) of blade about hinge axis ( k g m^ 2 )
moment
inertia of
Torsional Teeter Free
stiffness
blade of
root
spring
(N m/ r a d ) of rotor apex (m)
sling
distance angle
teeter
axis
upwind
teeter
( deg ) first coeff . or of linear coeff . (N m/ r a d )
Teeter Teeter Teeter
stiffness , stiffness , damping
deflection ( l b f f t s e c ) [ left
(N m/ r a d ^ 2 )
coefficient
1 ,2 ,3 ,4 ,5 ,6 ,7 ,8 ,9 ,10 ,11 ,12 ,13 ,14 ,15 ,16 ,17
out
for
brevity ]
Listing A.3:
Example yawdyn.ipt input le for QBladeAE simulation
A Appendix
96
TurbSim
v 1.50
Input
File .
Generated
in
QBladeAE
on
Do
Dez
16
2010
12:12:21..
Wing :
S 8 8V 3 .
3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15
Runtime
123456 RANLUX True False False False True False False False True 0 RandSeed 1 RandSeed 2 WrBHHTP WrFHHTP WrADHH WrADFF WrBLFF WA T R r D W WrFMTFF WrACT Clockwise ScaleIEC
Options
First Second Output Output Output Output Output Output Output Output
random random
seed seed
( 2147483648 for intrinsic
to
2147483647) or in in an alternative form ? form ?
pRNG,
hub h e i g h t hub h e i g h t hub h e i g h t full full
turbulence turbulence t i m e s e r i e s t ime s e r i e s t ime s e r i e s
parameters parameters data data data in in in
binary
formatted form ?
AeroDyn
f i e l d f i e l d f i e l d
TurbSim / AeroDyn BLADED/ AeroDyn
form ? form ?
tower full
t i m e s e r i e s
data ? data in formatted in AeroDyn form ? form ?
t ime s e r i e s
coherent
turbulence looking models
time
steps
Clockwise Scale IEC
rotation
downwind ? to exact target standard deviation ?
turbulence
17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27
T u r b i n e / Model
25 25 0.05 600.0 90.0 89.0 107.0 107.0 0.00 0.00 NumGrid_Z NumGrid_ Y TimeStep AnalysisTime UsableTime HubHt GridHeight GridWidth VFlowAng HFlowAng
Specifications

matrix dimension dimension matrix
Vertical
g r i d p o i n t
Horizontal Time step of
g r i d p o i n t [ seconds ] analysis of
Length Usable Hub Grid Grid
time
series time be >
[ seconds ] [ seconds ]
length [m]
output
series
height height width
( should
0.5 GridHeight )
[m] [m] flow ( uptilt ) ( skew ) angle angle [ degrees ] [ degrees ]
Vertical
mean
Horizontal
mean
flow
29 30 31 32
Meteorological
IECKAI 1 A TurbModel IECstandard IECturbc IEC_WindType ETMc WindProfile RefHt URef ZJetMax PLExp Z0
Boundary
Conditions model IEC 61400 x standard
33 N M T 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 default default 89.00 13.00 default 0.20 0.03
Turbulence Number IEC IEC IEC Wind of
turbulence turbulence Extreme profile of the
characteristic type Model "c" parameter [m/ s ]
Turbulence type reference wind speed
Height Mean Jet
wind at
speed
[m] height [m/ s ]
( total ) height law
the
reference
[m] exponent [
Power
]
[m]
Surface
roughness
length
42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53
NonIEC
default 0.0000 default default default default default default default default default Latitude RICH_ NO UStar ZI PC U _ W PC UV _ PC V _ W IncDec 1 IncDec 2 IncDec 3 CohExp
Meteorological
Boundary
Conditions ( or " d e f a u l t ")
Site
latitude
[ degrees ]
Gradient Friction Mixing Hub Hub Hub
Richardson or shear depth
number [m/ s ] ( or " d e f a u l t ")
velocity [m] ( or
layer u ' w' u'v' v ' w'
" d e f a u l t ") ( or ( or ( or " d e f a u l t ") " d e f a u l t ") " d e f a u l t ")
mean mean mean
Reynolds Reynolds Reynolds
stress stress stress
uc o m p o n e n t vc o m p o n e n t w component Coherence
coherence coherence coherence ( or
parameters parameters parameters " d e f a u l t ")
exponent
55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62
Coherent
. . . LES true 1.00 0.50 0.50 30.0
Turbulence
Scaling of of the
Parameters path where event data "DNS" , and files or are located
CTEventPath CTEventFile Randomize DistScl CTLy CTLz CTStartTime
Name Type
event the
files
( " LES " ,
"R N O A D M" ) ( true / f a l s e ) disk ) . Randomize = of the true . )
Randomize
disturbance ( ratio of of for
scale of wave
locations ? to
Disturbance Fractional Fractional Minimum
scale
height
rotor
location location time
tower hub
centerline from
from the
right
height
bottom in
dataset .
start
coherent
structures
RootName . c t s
64 = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = 65 NOTE : Do not add or remove any lines in this file !
66 = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =
Listing A.4:
Example full eld input le for TurbSim
A Appendix
97
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Active ON PID 25 1 RELM 1 2 0 0
Element
. ipt
file active
from
QBladeAE .
Activate Define Number Number AEID
simulation [ PID or LOOP ] per per blade blade
controler of of blade active
elements elements
10
[ left
out
for
brevity ]
12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24
23 24 25
1 0 2 AE Settings Step size for control loop
General 1 0 AE#1
Sensor Setting 10 Min /Max Maximum Control Set
delay
10
30
range
of
actuator speed [ LOOP : DFN, DFT ; PID : AFMB[ kNm ] , FlapAngle , FlapRate ]
actuator parameter
FlapRate 0 23 20 12 5
point position Kd
Sensor Kp , Ki ,
Listing A.5:
Example active.ipt input le for QBladeAE simulation
A Appendix
98
A.2 Geometric blade design

Table A.1:
Radius r[m] Twist [deg] DR [m] Chord c[m] Airfoil

0.75 2.50 5.00 7.25 9.50 12.50 15.50 18.50 21.50 24.50 27.50 29.75 31.25 32.75 34.25 35.75 37.25 38.75 40.25 41.75 42.65 42.92 43.15 12.00 12.00 12.00 11.50 9.97 8.06 6.59 5.32 4.18 3.17 2.34 1.70 1.41 1.16 0.91 0.69 0.47 0.25 0.04 0.02 0.00 0.00 0.00 1.50 2.00 3.00 1.50 3.00 3.00 3.00 3.00 3.00 3.00 3.00 1.50 1.50 1.50 1.50 1.50 1.50 1.50 1.50 1.50 0.30 0.25 0.20 2.19 2.34 2.79 3.15 3.17 3.05 2.87 2.65 2.40 2.18 1.97 1.81 1.70 1.58 1.47 1.36 1.27 1.16 1.05 0.86 0.62 0.41 0.18
Blade geometric parameters in NREL format used for the simulation.
Cylinder Cylinder Morph1 Morph2 DU-00-W-401 DU-00-W-350 DU-97-W-300 DU-91-W-250 DU-93-W-210 DU-93-W-210 DU-93-W-210 DU-96-W-180 DU-96-W-180 DU-96-W-180 DU-96-W-180 DU-96-W-180 DU-96-W-180 DU-96-W-180 DU-96-W-180 DU-96-W-180 DU-96-W-180 DU-96-W-180 DU-96-W-180

Aeroelastic Simulation of Wind Turbines with Active Flow Control

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Aeroelastic Simulation of Wind Turbines with Active Flow Control

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Technische Universitt Berlin Fakultt V Institut fr Strmungsmechanik und Technische Akustik Fachgebiet fr Experimentelle Strmungsmechanik

from : Date : Course : 1st Supervisor : 2nd Supervisor :

Guido Weinzierl 19.04.2011 Strmungslehre II Prof. Dr.-Ing. C. O. Paschereit Dipl.-Ing. G. Pechlivanoglou

an open-source GUI application for wind turbine calculations.

are considered by their individual lift and drag polars.

and the structural analysis code

implemented. These simulation codes are provided by the

YawDyn is National Wind Technology

National Renewable Energy Laboratory

einer open-source Anwendung zur Rotorblattentwick-

lung und -berechnung nach der Blatt-Element-Methode.

zu modellieren, werden die aerodynamischen Berechnungsroutinen strukturdynamische Berechnungscode

benutzt. Die Programme werden vom

National Wind Technology Center tory

National Renewable Energy Labora-

Airfoil aerodynamics 3.2.1 3.2.2 3.2.3 3.2.4

5 Turbulent wind simulation 6 Active Flow Control

Yawed turbine . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Wind eld . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Baseline simulation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

10 Suggestions for future research 11 Conclusion Bibliography A Appendix

3.2 3.3 3.4

Rotor of a three-bladed wind turbine with the rotor radius

2D arfoil characteristics of a blade element. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Lift coecient

at dierent Reynolds numbers and xed/free tran17

sition for the DU 91-W2-250 airfoil. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.5 Drag coecient

cd () at dierent Reynolds numbers and xed/free tran18

sition for the DU 91-W2-250 airfoil. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.6 Moment coecient

at dierent Reynolds numbers and xed/free . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18 20

transition for the DU 91-W2-250 airfoil. 3.7 3.8

for two radial positions at

for the DU 91-W2-250 airfoil and

at plate theory. 3.10 Extrapolated

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . for the DU 91-W2-250 airfoil and according to the

at plate theory.

5.2 6.1 7.1 7.2

3D wind eld from QBladeAE with

8.3 8.4 8.5

Blade tip deection for dierent yaw angles.

Lift and drag coecient over angle of attack

for exible ap at 72 73 74

four ap angles. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9.4 9.5 9.6 Extrapolated

Out-of-plane bending moment for baseline simulation and the single

aps with maximum load reduction. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . for the baseline, the single

9.11 Flap angle for

ap over simulation time.

ap and the multiple individually optimization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 84

loop controlled aps.

ap at dierent radial positions. . . . . . . . .

Prandtl's tip-loss factor

PMA . . . . . . . . . . Q .............. r ............... T .............. U . . . . . . . . . . . . . ve,ip . . . . . . . . . . . . ve,op . . . . . . . . . . . . W ..............

GUI . . . . . . . . . . . . Graphical User Interface HAWT . . . . . . . . . Horizontal Axis Wind Turbine

[38] and the structural dynamic code

These simulation codes are provided by the National

[35] and as it deals with the investigation of the aforementioned user-dened

active elements, the name speaks for itself:

is being used to simulate an exemplary

Part I Model Theory

Using airfoil polar tables for the

and moment coecient

element forces can be calculated.

After integrating the forces over each blade, the

which in turn aects the blade element aerodynamics again.

Yawed turbine . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Wind eld . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Baseline simulation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

2D arfoil characteristics of a blade element. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Lift coecient

at dierent Reynolds numbers and xed/free tran17

sition for the DU 91-W2-250 airfoil. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.5 Drag coecient

cd () at dierent Reynolds numbers and xed/free tran18

sition for the DU 91-W2-250 airfoil. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.6 Moment coecient

at dierent Reynolds numbers and xed/free . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18 20

at plate theory. 3.10 Extrapolated

at plate theory.

3D wind eld from QBladeAE with

Blade tip deection for dierent yaw angles.

Lift and drag coecient over angle of attack

for exible ap at 72 73 74

four ap angles. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9.4 9.5 9.6 Extrapolated

aps with maximum load reduction. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

ap over simulation time.

ap and the multiple individually optimization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 84

loop controlled aps.

ap at dierent radial positions. . . . . . . . .

[35] and as it deals with the investigation of the aforementioned user-dened

and moment coecient

which in turn aects the blade element aerodynamics again.

Local blade element velocities and inow angles.

The other model used in AeroDyn slightly modies the

The eect of a vortex in the hub region is described using a nearly

implemented in AeroDyn and is slightly modied, to avoid numerical instability:

steady inow conditions,

is very useful for the aerodynamic simulation. This approach in contrary

to an on-the-y calculation allows to import airfoil characteristics from wind tunnel

This results in higher ow angles

must increase when the total inow