Development and application of a simulator for offshore wind turbine blades installation (original) (raw)
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Development and Verification of a Fully Coupled Simulator for Offshore Wind Turbines Preprint
The vast deepwater wind resource represents a potential to use floating offshore wind turbines to power much of the world with renewable energy. Comprehensive simulation tools that account for the coupled excitation and response of the complete system, including the influences of wind-inflow, aerodynamics, structural dynamics, controls, and, for offshore systems, waves, currents, and hydrodynamics, are used to design and analyze wind turbines. Continuing our work presented previously, we outline the development of such an analysis tool for floating offshore wind turbines, including a recently added, quasi-static mooring system module. The fully coupled simulator was developed with enough sophistication to address the limitations of previous frequency and time domain studies and to have the features required to perform an integrated loads analysis. It is also universal enough to analyze a variety of wind turbine, support platform, and mooring system configurations. The simulation capability was tested by model-to-model comparisons to ensure its correctness. The results of all of the verification exercises are favorable and give us confidence to pursue more thorough investigations into the behavior of floating offshore wind turbines. Some of the potential challenges to their design are highlighted through sample response simulations.
Journal of Offshore Mechanics and Arctic Engineering, 2020
The main objective of the Offshore Code Comparison Collaboration Continuation, with Correlation (OC5) project is validation of aero-hydro-servo-elastic simulation tools for offshore wind turbines (OWTs) through comparison of simulated results to the response data of physical systems. Phase III of the OC5 project validates OWT models against the measurements recorded on a Senvion 5M wind turbine supported by the OWEC Quattropod from the alpha ventus offshore wind farm. The following operating conditions of the wind turbine were chosen for the validation: (1) idling below the cut-in wind speed, (2) rotor-nacelle assembly (RNA) rotation maneuver below the cut-in wind speed, (3) power production below and above the rated wind speed, and (4) shutdown. A number of validation load cases were defined based on these operating conditions. The following measurements were used for validation: (1) strains and accelerations recorded on the support structure and (2) pitch, yaw, and azimuth angles,...
In this two-part paper we present a collection of numerical methods combined into a single framework, which has the potential for a successful application to wind turbine rotor modeling and simulation. In Part 1 of this paper we focus on: 1. The basics of geometry modeling and analysis-suitable geometry construction for wind turbine rotors; 2. The fluid mechanics formulation and its suitability and accuracy for rotating turbulent flows; 3. The coupling of air flow and a rotating rigid body. In Part 2 we focus on the structural discretization for wind turbine blades and the details of the fluid-structure interaction computational procedures. The methods developed are applied to the simulation of the NREL 5MW offshore baseline wind turbine rotor. The simulations are performed at realistic wind velocity and rotor speed conditions and at full spatial scale. Validation against published data is presented and possibilities of the newly developed computational framework are illustrated on several examples. lifetime is 20 years, a typical wind turbine fails 2.6 times during the first 10 years, usually within the gearbox, generator and rotor assembly, and the rotor assembly has been identified as the top opportunity for major advancement in design and performance improvements . While wind turbine rotor failures occur due to a variety of reasons, fatigue failure of the wind turbine blades due to their everyday operation is recognized as one of the major causes. However, the industry is currently unable to predict these failure mechanisms, which leads to the unscheduled downtime, expensive maintenance and reduced capacity.
Detailed Simulation of O ff shore Wind Turbine
2015
This paper presents results of numerical computations for floating off-shore wind turbines using, as an example, a machine of 10-MW rated power. The aerodynamic loads on the rotor are computed using the Helicopter Multi-Block flow solver developed at the University of Liverpool. The method solves the Navier-Stokes equations in integral form using the arbitrary LagrangianEulerian formulation for time-dependent domains with moving boundaries. Hydrodynamic loads on the support platform are computed using the Smooth-ed Particle Hydrodynamics method, which is mesh-free and represents the water and floating structures by a set of discrete elements, referred to as particles. The motion of the floating offshore wind turbine is computed using a Multi-Body Dynamic Model of rigid bodies and frictionless joints. Mooring cables are modelled as a set of springs and dampers. All solvers were validated separately before coupling, and the results are presented in this paper. The importance of coupli...
54th AIAA/ASME/ASCE/AHS/ASC Structures, Structural Dynamics, and Materials Conference, 2013
The availability of offshore wind resources in coastal regions makes offshore wind energy an attractive opportunity. There are, however, significant challenges in realizing offshore wind energy with an acceptable cost of energy due to increased infrastructure, logistics, and operations and maintenance costs. Vertical-axis wind turbines (VAWTs) are potentially ideal candidates for offshore applications, with many apparent advantages over the horizontal-axis wind turbine configuration in the offshore arena. VAWTs, however, will need to undergo much development in the coming years. Thus, the Offshore Wind ENergy Simulation (OWENS) toolkit is being developed as a design tool for assessing innovative floating VAWT configurations. This paper presents an overview of the OWENS toolkit and provides an update on the development of the tool. Verification and validation exercises are discussed, and comparisons to experimental data for the Sandia National Laboratories 34meter VAWT test bed are presented. A discussion and demonstration of a "loose" coupling approach to external loading modules, which allows a greater degree of modularity, is given. Results for a realistic VAWT structure on a floating platform under aerodynamic loads are shown and coupling between platform and turbine motions is demonstrated. Finally, future plans for development and use of the OWENS toolkit are discussed.
Development and Application of a Simulation Tool for Vertical and Horizontal Axis Wind Turbines
Volume 8: Supercritical CO2 Power Cycles; Wind Energy; Honors and Awards, 2013
A double-multiple-streamtube vertical axis wind turbine simulation and design module has been integrated within the open-source wind turbine simulator QBlade. QBlade also contains the XFOIL airfoil analysis functionalities, which makes the software a single tool that comprises all functionality needed for the design and simulation of vertical or horizontal axis wind turbines. The functionality includes two dimensional airfoil design and analysis, lift and drag polar extrapolation, rotor blade design and wind turbine performance simulation. The QBlade software also inherits a generator module, pitch and rotational speed controllers, geometry export functionality and the simulation of rotor characteristics maps. Besides that, QBlade serves as a tool to compare different blade designs and their performance and to thoroughly investigate the distribution of all relevant variables along the rotor in an included post processor. The benefits of this code will be illustrated with two different case studies. The first case deals with the effect of stall delaying vortex generators on a vertical axis wind turbine rotor. The second case outlines the impact of helical blades and blade number on the time varying loads of a vertical axis wind turbine.
2018
The main objective of the Offshore Code Comparison Collaboration Continuation, with Correlation (OC5) project, is validation of aero-hydro-servo-elastic simulation tools for offshore wind turbines (OWTs) through comparison of simulated results to the response data of physical systems. Phase III of the OC5 project analyzes the Senvion 5M wind turbine supported by the OWEC Quattropod from the alpha ventus offshore wind farm. This paper shows results of the verification of the OWT models (code-to-code comparison). A subsequent publication will focus on their validation (comparison of simulated results to measured physical system response data). Based on the available data, the participants of Phase III set up numerical models of the OWT in their simulation tools. It was necessary to verify and to tune these models. The verification and tuning were performed against an OWT model available at the University of Stuttgart – Stuttgart Wind Energy (SWE) and documentation provided by Senvion ...
Integrated Dynamic Analysis of Floating Offshore Wind Turbines
Volume 1: Offshore Technology; Offshore Wind Energy; Ocean Research Technology; LNG Specialty Symposium, 2006
A computer tool for simulation of the dynamic response of floating wind turbines exposed to forces from wind, waves and current has been developed for Hydro Oil & Energy's floating wind turbine concept, HYWIND. Two existing, independent, computer program systems are used as basis for the new tool. The HAWC2 computer program from Risø National Laboratory is a state-of-the-art aero-elastic code for analysis of the response of fixedfoundation wind turbines, while the SIMO/RIFLEX computer program system from MARINTEK is a tool for simulating the dynamic response of marine structures.
Volume 11A: Honoring Symposium for Professor Carlos Guedes Soares on Marine Technology and Ocean Engineering, 2018
To accurately predict the critical loads due to wind and wave is one of the common challenges in designing a floating offshore wind turbine (FOWT). The fully-coupled aero-hydrodynamic simulation of a floating offshore wind turbine, the NREL-5MW baseline wind turbine mounted on a semi-submersible floating platform, is conducted with two methods. Firstly, the in-house code naoe-FOAM-os-SJTU, which is developed on the open source platform OpenFOAM and coupled with the overset grid technique, is employed for the directly CFD computations. And another in-house code FOWT-UALM-SJTU developed by coupling the unsteady actuator line model (UALM) with naoe-FOAM-SJTU is also utilized for coupling simulations. In both models, the three-dimensional Reynolds Averaged Navier-Stokes (RANS) equations are solved with the turbulence model k-ω SST, and the Pressure-Implicit with Splitting of Operations (PISO) algorithm is applied to solve the pressure-velocity coupling equations. Both two solvers provid...
3D simulation of wind turbine rotors at full scale. Part I: Geometry modeling and aerodynamics
In this two-part paper we present a collection of numerical methods combined into a single framework, which has the potential for a successful application to wind turbine rotor modeling and simulation. In Part 1 of this paper we focus on: 1. The basics of geometry modeling and analysis-suitable geometry construction for wind turbine rotors; 2. The fluid mechanics formulation and its suitability and accuracy for rotating turbulent flows; 3. The coupling of air flow and a rotating rigid body. In Part 2 we focus on the structural discretization for wind turbine blades and the details of the fluid-structure interaction computational procedures. The methods developed are applied to the simulation of the NREL 5MW offshore baseline wind turbine rotor. The simulations are performed at realistic wind velocity and rotor speed conditions and at full spatial scale. Validation against published data is presented and possibilities of the newly developed computational framework are illustrated on several examples. lifetime is 20 years, a typical wind turbine fails 2.6 times during the first 10 years, usually within the gearbox, generator and rotor assembly, and the rotor assembly has been identified as the top opportunity for major advancement in design and performance improvements . While wind turbine rotor failures occur due to a variety of reasons, fatigue failure of the wind turbine blades due to their everyday operation is recognized as one of the major causes. However, the industry is currently unable to predict these failure mechanisms, which leads to the unscheduled downtime, expensive maintenance and reduced capacity.