Sharif Digital Repository

A series of low speed wind tunnel tests were conducted on a section of a 660 kW wind turbine blade to examine the effects of distributed surface contamination on its performance characteristics. The selected airfoil was tested with a clean surface, two types of zigzag roughness, strip tape roughness and distributed contamination roughness. The straight and zigzag leading edge roughness models simplify the contamination results in an early turbulence transition. In this study, surface contamination was simulated by applying 0.5 mm height roughness over the entire upper surface of the airfoil. The distribution density varied from the leading edge to the trailing edge of the model. Our data... 

During the shut down period, a 32. MW gas turbine experienced a severe failure accompanied by a loud noise near its second natural frequency at 4200. rpm. After opening the turbine casing, it was revealed that the disks of stages 16 and 17 of the compressor had been fractured and all of the stationary and rotary blades of stages 14-18 of the compressor had been detached from the dovetail region of the disks. The degree of damage was such that repairing the compressor was not economical, and thus, the compressor was no longer able to be used. Diagnostic work was carried out using different finite element models and fractography analysis. Analysis showed that multiple cracks had been initiated... 

In this paper, a reduced order model for the nonlinear dynamic analysis of the wind turbine blade under operational loading is presented. The accuracy and efficiency of the proposed model are investigated through various static and dynamic analyses. A comprehensive straightforward formulation for the nonlinear beam model is developed based on different large deformation strain theories. Also, the fluid-structure coupling effects due to quasi-steady aerodynamics and gravitational forces are included. The new matrix expressions are introduced for direct conversion of the developed formulation into the reduced order model (ROM). Thereafter, the ROM based on the Galerkin method is developed... 

In this paper a structural health monitoring technique considering the effect of wind on structural stability on laminated composite wind turbine has been investigated. Based on fluid structure interaction method and Has hin failure criteria, condition monitoring of w ind turbine blades under sudden change of wind speed is investigated. The embedded fiber optic sensors are considered to detect the change in strain due to wind forces on the blades  

The axial turbine is one of the most challenging components of gas turbines for industrial and aerospace applications. With the ever-increasing requirement for high-aerodynamic performance blades, three-dimensional aerodynamic shape optimization is of great importance. In this research, the rear part of a gas turbine consisting of a one-stage axial turbine is optimized numerically. A useful optimization algorithm is presented to improve the efficiency and/or pressure ratio of the axial turbine with two different objective functions. The three-dimensional blade-shape optimization is employed to study the effects of the turbine stator and rotor lean and sweep angles on the turbine performance.... 

To achieve a cost-effective and reliable use of wind power generation, advanced control techniques are required. In this paper, the application of two control strategies for the improvement of wind turbine power output is investigated in the presence of model/environmental uncertainties. Rotational speed of the wind turbine and consequently its power output are controlled via manipulation of blades pitch angle (at a constant generator torque). First, the classical PID controller is designed based on root locus analysis while in the second scheme, an H∞-robust controller is designed via μ-synthesis based on DKiteration algorithm. Performance of the two controllers in tracking of the desired... 

In this study a multi-objective genetic algorithm is utilized to obtain a Pareto optimal set of solutions for geometrical characteristics of airfoil sections for 10-meter blades of a horizontal axis wind turbine. The performance of the airfoil sections during the process of energy conversion is evaluated deploying a 2D incompressible unsteady CFD solver and the second law analysis. Artificial neural networks are trained employing CFD obtained data sets to represent objective functions in an algorithm which implements exergetic performance and integrity characteristics as optimization objectives. The results show that utilizing the second law approach along with Pareto optimality concept... 

Rapid growth in generating power from wind turbines led to application of long laminated composite blades. However, as the length of blades increases, the risk of failure due to excessive vibration increases. Therefore, a reliable wind power generator requires an efficient and accurate, yet economical structural health monitoring system to detect vibration and apply a reliable control to prevent from unpredicted failure. This paper presents an optimal, low cost and continuous vibration monitoring system for laminated composite blades using Fiber Bragg Grating (FBG). Utilizing a layerwise displacement theory, the Finite Element (FEM) model has been developed for the wind turbine blade. The... 

Extensive tests were carried out on a section of a wind turbine blade. The effect of reduced frequency on the boundary layer transition point of the model oscillating in plunge has been investigated. The spatial-temporal progressions of the transition point and the state of the unsteady boundary layer were measured using multiple hot-film sensors. The measurements showed that reduced frequency highly affects variations of the transition point and results in a hysteresis loop in the dynamic transition locations. The dominated frequencies of the boundary layer are found to be a function of the reduced frequency and mean angle of attack  

Tapered composite beams are increasingly being used in various engineering applications such as helicopter yoke, robot arms, and turbine blades. In the present work, the buckling analysis of laminated tapered composite beams is conducted using a higher order finite element formulation. In tapered laminates, the material and geometric discontinuities at ply drop-off locations lead to significant discontinuities in stress distributions. Higher order formulation ensures the continuity of the stress distribution through the thickness of a laminate as well as across the element interfaces, which is very important for the analysis of tapered laminates. In addition, higher order finite element... 

The dynamic behavior of nonuniform-thickness laminated composite beams, such as helicopter blades, wind turbine blades, and robot arms, is of high importance in the design and fabrication of such elements. Changing the thickness of laminated structures is a significant challenge during fabrication because different tapering configurations may significantly alter the stiffness of the structures and thus the dynamic response of the structures. In this study, the effect of adding nanoparticles to resin on the stiffness and dynamic behavior of nonuniform-thickness laminated composite beam elements was investigated. A set of experiments were conducted to examine the natural frequencies and... 

Numerous experiments were conducted on the section of a 660 kw wind turbine blade in a subsonic wind tunnel. The selected airfoil was tested with a clean and distributed contamination roughness surface, with a high and low tunnel turbulence intensity. Surface contamination was simulated by applying 0.5 mm height roughness over the entire upper surface of the airfoil. The surface pressure distribution is measured under a steady and unsteady condition, at three Reynolds numbers; 0.43, 0.85, and 1.3 million, and over a range of angles of attack, AOA=7°-19°. Unsteady data were acquired by both pitch and plunge-type oscillation of the model about its quarter chord at a reduced frequency of 0.07.... 

Here we have optimized shape and location of cooling passages of a C3X turbine blade using a multi-objective strategy. The objective functions is selected to be the maximum temperature gradient and the maximum temperature through the three dimensional blade. Shape of cooling channels is modeled using a new method based on the Bezier curves and using forty design variables. The optimized channel shapes are found to be smooth and without corners. To reduce the computational time, parallel processing and the reduced conjugate heat transfer methodology RCHT is used. Using RCHT, the heat transfer between channels and blade are coupled, while the experimental data is used for heat transfer... 

The study develops a methodology for the aero-structural design including consideration of the starting of a small wind turbine blade. To design a fast-starting blade, starting time was combined with output power in an objective function and the blade allowable stress was considered as a constraint. The output power and the starting time were calculated by the blade-element momentum theory and the simple beam theory was employed to compute the stress and deflection along the blade. A genetic algorithm was employed to solve the constrained objective function, finding an optimal blade for which the starting time was small and output power was high while the stress limitation was also met.... 

The study deals with the design and optimization of external and internal geometry of micro-wind turbines blades. A specified objective function which consists of the power coefficient and the starting time was defined and the genetic algorithm optimization technique in conjunction with the blade-element momentum theory was adopted to find the geometry of the blades including the distributions of the chord, the twist angle and also the shell thickness. Moreover, the allowable stress of the blades was considered as a constraint to the objective function. Results show that a reasonable compromise is achievable such that the starting time of the blades reduces noticeably in return for a small... 

In this paper, an aeroelastic analysis of a rotating wind turbine blade is performed by considering the effects of geometrical nonlinearities associated with large deflection of the blade produced during wind turbine operation. This source of nonlinearity has become more important in the dynamic analysis of flexible blades used in more recent multi-megawatt wind turbines. The structural modeling, involving the coupled edgewise, flapwise and torsional DOFs, has been performed by using a nonlinear geometrically exact beam formulation. The aerodynamic model is presented based on the strip theory, by applying the principles of quasi-steady and unsteady airfoil aerodynamics. Compared to the... 

Design and manufacturing of a high performance micro-hydro-kinetic turbine is discussed in the present paper. The main goal is manufacturing an equipped experimental model of hydro-kinetic turbine with highest energy absorption from water current. A multi-shape ducted turbine comprised of a multi-part diffuser was manufactured that can be converted to many experimental models for studying various diffuser enhancing effects. Turbine's rotor included a three-blade axial propeller and a mixed six-blade propeller with high power coefficient. Simple experiments on propeller were performed for flow visualization, torque measurement and illustrating dynamic balance at high speed rotation in air and... 

Laminated composite structures are widely being used in modern industries particularly robot arms, aerospace and wind turbine blades where the structures mainly exposed to harsh random vibration and in turn, leads to unpredicted failure. Adding Magneto-rheological (MR) fluids in such structures may significantly improve their dynamic response. In the present work, the vibration response of laminated composite beams filled with MR fluids (MR laminated beam) under random loading has been investigated using experimental as well as simulation approaches. Finite Element Model (FEM) has been utilized to simulate the vibration response under random loading. An in-house set-up has been designed to... 

Over the recent decades, many different ducted turbines have been designed to augment efficiency of wind turbines. The design and number of blades are the most important parameters to optimize efficiency of wind turbines. In this paper, effects of design, number and attack angles of blades on rotational speed are experimentally studied in a duct which increases wind velocity up to 2.46 times numerically and 2.32 times experimentally as great as far-field flow. In order to realize this, 3 different types of aerodynamic blades were designed and then, 2-bladed, 3-bladed and 4-bladed impellers were created by these blades; finally, 9 impellers were built on aggregate. The rotational speed of... 

Due to the increased flexibility of modern multi-megawatt wind turbine structures, more advanced analyses are needed to investigate the effects of geometric nonlinearities originating from large blade deformations under operational loads. The main objective of this paper is to study the related dynamics and the aeroelastic effects of these nonlinearities by using a multi-flexible-body aeroelastic model of an entire three-bladed wind turbine assembly instead of a more conventional single-blade model. A geometrically-exact beam formulation is employed to model the rotating blades connected to the wind turbine tower tip via hub and nacelle components; and the revolute joint constraint is...