MEGA WIND TURBINE 20 MW S. Dhanabal, Kalaignar Karunanidhi Institute of Technology, Coimbatore,dhanselmyl@gmail.

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ABSTRACT: Wind energy, currently regarded as an important source of renewable energy, is dependent upon the optimal operation of the newest generation of large wind turbines. This is possible through reliable measurement of the wind inflow characteristics. Experience has shown that the accurate power generation estimation based on wind speed is a challenging task and that for large new turbine models, conventional met mast wind speed measurements are not feasible due to cost and technical considerations. Is it possible to build a 20 MW wind turbine using the methods and materials we know today? One single wind turbine of this type in the North Sea would provide electricity for 15,000 to 20,000 dwellings. Is it technically possible and economically feasible? There are 16,000-20,000 components in a wind turbine. We focused on the main components in wind turbines to find answers to two fundamental questions: Is it technically possible to build a 20 megawatt wind turbine? Is it economically feasible to build it? The overall conclusion we can draw from the upwind project is that if you built a 20 MW wind turbine based on existing technologies and methods, it will be 15-20 percent more expensive than today's wind turbines.

INTRODUCTION: An intelligent wind turbine blade is one of the solutions. Aero elastic methods are used to calculate the wind turbines dynamic response to turbulence in the wind. In the Upwind project, studies of aeroelastic methods, materials, management and regulation and many other technologies to be developed for designing a 20 M wind turbine and development of smart rotor blades with trailing edge-regulation. That means that the trailing edge of the blade can move up and down like flaps on an airplane. We have worked on developing several different types of sensor systems such as pitot tubes which are also used to measure the wind speed of aircrafts. Should we introduce these innovations to existing wind turbines, they would probably be more expensive, but if they are implemented on very large turbines the savings from load reductions probably would be competitive. Our conclusion is that up scaling opens up for new technologies, various types of movable trailing edges for turbine blades and different mechanisms for activating the trailing edge movement have been tested, and the aerodynamic properties of the movable trailing edge have been studied in wind tunnels.

WIND TURBINE: The aerodynamics of a horizontal-axis wind turbine are not straightforward. The air flow at the blades is not the same as the airflow far away from the turbine. The very nature of the way in which energy is extracted from the air also causes air to be deflected by the turbine. In addition the aerodynamics of a wind turbine at the rotor surface exhibit phenomena that are rarely seen in other aerodynamic fields. In 1919 the physicist Albert Betz showed that for a hypothetical ideal wind-energy extraction machine, the fundamental laws of conservation of mass and energy allowed no more than 16/27 (59.3%) of the kinetic energy of the wind to be captured. This Betz' lawlimit can be approached by modern turbine designs which may reach 70 to 80% of this theoretical limit.

WIND TURBINE AERODYNAMICS: The primary application of wind turbines is to extract energy from the wind. Hence, the aerodynamics is a very important aspect of wind turbines. Like many machines, there are many different types all based on different energy extraction concepts. Similarly, the aerodynamics of one wind turbine to the next can be very different. Overall the details of the aerodynamics depend very much on the topology. There are still some fundamental concepts that apply to all turbines. Every topology has a maximum power for a given flow, and some topologies are better than others. The method used to extract power has a strong influence on this. In general all turbines can be grouped as being lift based, or drag based with the former being more efficient. The difference between these groups is the aerodynamic force that is used to extract the energy. The most common topology is the Horizontal-axis wind turbine. It is a lift based wind turbine with very good performance, accordingly it is a popular for commercial applications and much research has been applied to this turbine. In the latter part of the 20th century theDarrieus wind turbine was another popular lift based alternative but is rarely used today. The Savonius wind turbine is the most common drag type turbine, despite its low efficiency it is used because it is simple to build and maintain and very robust.

AEROELASTICITY: Wind turbine blades bend and twist during operation, effectively altering the angle of attack, which in turn affects loads and energy production. There are blades now in use that have significant aeroelastic couplings, either on purpose or because of flexible and light-weight designs. Since aeroelastic effects are almost unavoidable in flexible blade designs, it may be desirable to tailor these effects to our advantage. Efforts have been directed at adding flexible devices to a blade, or blade tip, to passively regulate power (or speed) in high winds. It is also possible to build a small amount of desirable twisting into the load response of a blade with proper asymmetric fiber lay up in the blade skin. A Kooijman (1996) report on aeroelastic tailoring concludes that the use of aeroelastic tailoring of the Fibre Reinforced Plastics to control limited torsional deformation is a promising way to improve rotor blade design. Kooijman evaluates building the elastic coupling into the blade skin.

Some of his conclusions for blades designed for the Smart Rotor are that: 1. Bending-twist coupling gives the potential for a few percentages of energy yield improvement for constant-speed pitch-controlled turbines and improves starting torque by 10%. 2. Optimal constant-speed pitch-controlled rotor production is obtained with the inboard span twisting to feather and the outboard 60% of the span twisting toward stall as wind speed increases.

3. The coupling is best achieved with hybrid carbon/glass reinforcement in the cross ply direction. 4. Bending-torsion flexibility is about 10% less than a standard construction.

coupling (from Karaolis, et al., 1988).Presented at Windpower 98, American Wind Energy Association Meeting and Exhibition, Bakersfield, California, April 28 May 1, 1998 A recent Windpower Monthly (Feb. 1998) reported that some Lagerwey turbines will include the TenTorTube device for passively controlling power and reducing run-away risk. This tube, shown in Figure 2, attaches a pitchable tip to the blade and twists in response to centrifugal loads caused by rotor-speed changes. The mechanism can be locked at low speeds and then used to produce a large change in power at higher rotor speeds. The aramid-epoxy device can be made as long as is needed to produce the desired magnitude of tip rotation. Therefore, large twist angles can be achieved, even with an entirely elastic device. The ability to design in a few degrees of blade twist was encouraged by a report by Stoddard, et al. (1989) which found a few degrees of elastic twist in blades not intended to have any. They concluded that up to two and a half degrees of twist occur on the blades in the study group (UTRC 2.6 deg., ESI 0.4 deg., Carter 2.0 deg.). Therefore, it should be possible to design in desirable elastic twist in response to rotor loads, either centrifugal or flap, that enhance energy capture performance. The reorientation of the fiber directions in the blade skin or spar to achieve either flap-load or extension-load coupling with blade twist, has potential to be a cost effective and reliable aeroelastic tailoring approach. We seek here to investigate modest blade rotations produced by elastic twist of the blade itself without any additional mechanisms or devices. The helicopter industry has long ago seen the potential in aeroelastic tailoring. The next section includes a summary of helicopter

experience. There are a number of possible uses of aeroelastic tailoring in wind turbine applications, each of which is discussed in subsequent sections. Stall enhancement to better regulate and permit larger diameter rotorsand improved average energy capture are discussed first. Then dynamic effects including load alleviation and stability issues are reviewed. The manufacturing constraints and opportunities are just beginning to be addressed.

PITOT TUBES: An intelligent wind turbine blade is one of the solutions. Aero elastic methods are used to calculate the wind turbines dynamic response to turbulence in the wind. In the Upwind project, studies of aeroelastic methods, materials, management and regulation and many other technologies to be developed for designing a 20 M wind turbine and development of smart rotor blades with trailing edge-regulation. That means that the trailing edge of the blade can move up and down like flaps on an airplane. We have worked on developing several different types of sensor systems such as pitot tubes which are also used to measure the wind speed of aircrafts. Should we introduce these innovations to existing wind turbines, they would probably be more expensive, but if they are implemented on very large turbines the savings from load reductions probably would be competitive. Our conclusion is that up scaling opens up for new technologies, various types of movable trailing edges for turbine blades and different mechanisms for activating the trailing edge movement have been tested, and the aerodynamic properties of the movable trailing edge have been studied in wind tunnels.

LIDAR: LIDAR (Light Detection And Ranging, also LADAR) is an optical remote sensing technology that can measure the distance to, or other properties of a target by illuminating the target with light, often using pulses from a laser. LIDAR technology has applicationin geomatics, archaeology, geography, geology,geomorphology, seismology, forestry, remote sensing and atmospheric physics, as well as in airborne laser swath mapping (ALSM), laser altimetry and LIDAR contour mapping. LIDAR uses ultraviolet, visible, or near infrared light to image objects and can be used with a wide range of targets, including non-metallic objects, rocks, rain, chemical compounds, aerosols, clouds and even single molecules. A narrow laser beam can be used to map physical features with very highresolution. LIDAR has been used extensively for atmospheric research and meteorology. Downwardlooking LIDAR instruments fitted to aircraft and satellites are used for surveying and mapping a recent example being the NASA Experimental Advanced Research Lidar.[2] In addition LIDAR has been identified by NASA as a key technology for enabling autonomous precision safe landing of future robotic and crewed lunar landing vehicles. Wavelengths in a range from about 10 micrometers to the UV (ca. 250 nm) are used to suit the target. Typically light is reflected via backscattering. Different types of scattering are used for different LIDAR applications; most common are Rayleigh scattering, Mie scattering and Raman scattering, as well asfluorescence. Based on different kinds of backscattering, the LIDAR can be accordingly called Rayleigh LiDAR, Mie LiDAR, Raman LiDAR and Na/Fe/K Fluorescence LIDAR and so on.[1] Suitable combinations of wavelengths can allow for remote mapping of atmospheric contents by looking for wavelength-dependent changes in the intensity of the returned signal. Lidar is mounted on a wind turbine rotor to measure oncoming horizontal winds, and proactively adjust blades to protect components and increase power.

Wind field measurements with Light Detection and Ranging (LIDAR) might therefore open the path to more advanced control strategies, e.g. feed forward control with disturbance compensation for collective or individual pitch control. Here the state-of-the-art controller can be improved by using the prediction of wind speed and the knowledge of its affect on the turbine. Another promising solution is to integrate the knowledge of the future wind in the underlying optimal control problem of a nonlinear model-predictive controller (NMPC). This controller has been successfully applied in several industrial implementations and computes multiple control actions based on a nonlinear model. By choosing the optimization criteria the desired compromise can be found maximizing the power output while minimizing loads and pitch

actions. First studies suggest that the proposed methods are powerful for reduction of rotor speed variations, energy losses by wind gust and reduction of loads on blades and tower.

Lidar is a remote sensing technique that offers the ability to determine wind speed and direction at substantial heights using a ground-based instrument. In this respect it is similar to Sodar, but operates via the transmission and detection of light rather than sound. The basic Lidar principle is to measure the Doppler shift of radiation scattered by 278 natural aerosols carried by the wind. Typically, these are dust, water droplets, pollution, pollen or salt crystals. A new generation of fibre-based Lidar has emerged in recent years that operates close to the theoretical limit of sensitivity and typically only needs to detect one photon for every 10E+12 transmitted in order to measure wind speed. Since the Doppler-shifted frequency is directly proportional to line-of-sight velocity, the wind speeds obtained by a Lidar instrument seem not to need calibration. This however still remains to be documented by more measurements and by a full description of the whole measurement chain. As in the case of Sodar, the Lidar is also a new instrument, and its merits and limitations are neither fully documented nor known. In the case of the Lidar, the measurement of the wind speed takes place on the surface of a cone where the depth changes as a function of the focus distance. The measurement of the turbulence quantities using Lidar also remains to be documented.

CONCLUTION: The overall conclusion we can draw from the UpWind project is that if you built a 20 MW wind turbine based on existing technologies and methods, it will be 15-20% more expensive than todays wind turbines

CONTACT DETAILS OF AUTHOR

1. Dhanabal S

Ph : 9965045398.