Sensor comparison study for load alleviating wind turbine pitch control

As the size of wind turbines increases, the load alleviating capabilities of the turbine controller are becoming increasingly important. Load alleviating control schemes have traditionally been based on feedback from load sensor; however, recent developments of measurement technologies have enabled control on the basis of preview measurements of the inflow acquired using, e.g., light detection and ranging. The potential of alleviating load variations that are caused by mean wind speed changes through feed‐forward control have been demonstrated through both experiments and simulations in several studies, whereas the potential of preview control for alleviating the load variations caused by azimuth dependent inflow variations is less described. Individual or cyclic pitch is required to alleviate azimuth dependent load variations and is traditionally applied through feedback control of the blade root loads. In many existing studies, the performance of an advanced controller is compared with the performance of a simpler controller. In this study, the effect of three measurement types on the load alleviating performance of the same cyclic pitch control design is studied. By using a baseline cyclic pitch controller as test bench, the effect of the different measurement types on the controller performance can be assessed independent of control design. The three measurement types that are considered in this study are as follows: blade root out‐of‐plane bending moment, on‐blade measurements of angle of attack and relative velocity at a radial position of the blades, and upstream inflow measurements from a spinner mounted light detection and ranging (LiDAR) sensor that enables preview of the incoming flow field. The results show that for stationary inflow conditions, the three different measurement types yield similar load reductions, but for varying inflow conditions, the LiDAR sensor‐based controller yields larger load reductions than the two others. The results also show that the performance of the LiDAR sensor‐based controller is very sensitive to uncertainties relating to the inflow estimation. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

LiDAR measurements for an onshore wind farm: Wake variability for different incoming wind speeds and atmospheric stability regimes

Wind measurements were performed with the UTD mobile LiDAR station for an onshore wind farm located in Texas with the aim of characterizing evolution of wind‐turbine wakes for different hub‐height wind speeds and regimes of the static atmospheric stability. The wind velocity field was measured by means of a scanning Doppler wind LiDAR, while atmospheric boundary layer and turbine parameters were monitored through a met‐tower and SCADA, respectively. The wake measurements are clustered and their ensemble statistics retrieved as functions of the hub‐height wind speed and the atmospheric stability regime, which is characterized either with the Bulk Richardson number or wind turbulence intensity at hub height. The cluster analysis of the LiDAR measurements has singled out that the turbine thrust coefficient is the main parameter driving the variability of the velocity deficit in the near wake. In contrast, atmospheric stability has negligible influence on the near‐wake velocity field, while it affects noticeably the far‐wake evolution and recovery. A secondary effect on wake‐recovery rate is observed as a function of the rotor thrust coefficient. For higher thrust coefficients, the enhanced wake‐generated turbulence fosters wake recovery. A semi‐empirical model is formulated to predict the maximum wake velocity deficit as a function of the downstream distance using the rotor thrust coefficient and the incoming turbulence intensity at hub height as input. The cluster analysis of the LiDAR measurements and the ensemble statistics calculated through the Barnes scheme have enabled to generate a valuable dataset for development and assessment of wind farm models.     

HAWT near‐wake aerodynamics,Part I: axial flow conditions

An improved physical understanding of the rotor aerodynamics of a horizontal axis wind turbine (HAWT) is required to reduce the uncertainties associated with today's design codes. Wind tunnel experiments contribute to increased knowledge and enable validation and construction of models. The present study focuses on the near‐wake of a model HAWT in both axial and yawed flow conditions. At three downstream planes parallel to the rotor plane, single‐sensor hot‐film traverses are made. The phase‐locked unsteady three‐dimensional flow velocity vector is determined by a novel data reduction method. A series of two papers discusses the near‐wake aerodynamics of a model HAWT. The main goals are to obtain a detailed understanding of the near‐wake development and to arrive at a base for model construction and validation. The first paper presents the experimental setup, data reduction and the results for the baseline case (axial flow conditions). In the second paper, the results for the yawed flow cases are presented and the effect of yaw misalignment on the near‐wake development is discussed. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Real‐time wind field reconstruction from LiDAR measurements using a dynamic wind model and state estimation

The use of light detection and ranging (LiDAR) instruments offer many potential benefits to the wind energy industry. Although much effort has been invested in developing such instruments, the fact remains that they provide limited spatio‐temporal velocity measurements of the wind field. Moreover, LiDAR measurements only provide the radial (line‐of‐sight) velocity component of the wind, making it difficult to precisely determine wind magnitude and direction, owing to the so‐called ‘cyclops’ dilemma. Motivated by a desire to extract more information from typical LiDAR data, this paper aims to show that it is possible to accurately estimate, in a real‐time fashion, the radial and tangential velocity components of the wind field. We show how such reconstructions can be generated through the synthesis of an unscented Kalman filter that employs a low‐order dynamic model of the wind to estimate the unmeasured velocities within the wind field, using repeated measurement updates from typical nacelle‐mounted LiDAR instruments. This approach is validated upon synthetic data generated from large eddy simulations of the atmospheric boundary layer. The accuracy of the wind field estimates are validated across a variety of beam configurations, look directions, atmospheric stabilities and imperfect measurement conditions. The main outcome of this paper is a technique that offers the potential to accurately reconstruct wind fields from LiDAR data, overcoming the cyclops dilemma in the process. The ultimate aim of this research is to provide reliable gust detection warning systems to offshore construction workers, in addition to accurate wind field estimates for use in preview turbine pitch control systems. © 2014 The Authors. Wind Energy published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd.     

Experimental and numerical investigation of tip vortex generation and evolution on horizontal axis wind turbines

The tip vortex of a wind turbine rotor blade is the result of a distribution of aerodynamic loads and circulation over the blade tip. The current knowledge on the generation of the tip vorticity in a 3D rotating environment still lacks detailed experimental evidence, particularly for yawed flow. The aim of this paper is to investigate how circulation at the blade tip behaves and how vorticity is eventually released in the wake, for both axial and 30° yawed flow conditions through the combination of experimental and numerical simulations. Stereo particle image velocimetry is used to measure the flow field at the tip of a 2m diameter, two‐bladed rotor at the TU Delft Open Jet Facility, for both axial and yawed flow; numerical simulations of the experiments are performed using a 3D, unsteady potential flow free‐wake vortex model. The generation mechanisms of the tip vorticity are established. The spanwise circulation along the blade exhibits a similar variation in both axial and yaw cases. A comparison of the chordwise directed circulation variation along the chord between axial and yawed flow is also presented and shown to be different. The analysis is based on contour integration of the velocity field. The tip vortex trajectory for axial flow confirms previous observations on the MEXICO rotor. The experimental results for yawed conditions have clearly shown how vorticity is swept radially away from the blade under the influence of the in‐plane radial component of flow. Such phenomena were only partially captured by the numerical model. The results of this work have important implications on the modelling of blade tip corrections. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Extracting angles of attack from blade‐resolved rotor CFD simulations

The distribution of the angles of attack over the span of a rotor blade, together with blade element theory, provides a useful framework to understand forces, performance and other fluid dynamic phenomena of axial‐flow rotors. However, the angle of attack is not straightforward to define for a three‐dimensional rotor, where the flow is perturbed by the blade circulation, shed vorticity and wake development. This paper evaluates six methods to extract the angles of attack from blade‐resolved CFD simulations of axial‐flow turbines. Simulations of two different rotors are presented: a low solidity rotor designed for wind and a higher solidity rotor designed for tidal stream energy conversion. Of the analysed methods, five were obtained from the literature and are tested in terms of their internal parameters. The remaining method is named the streamtube analysis method (SAM) and is presented as an improvement on analysis methods that azimuthally average the flow data on the rotor plane, referred to as azimuthal averaging techniques (AATs). The SAM method accounts for the expansion of the streamtubes in flow‐field velocity sampling and exhibits improved convergence on the internal parameters compared with AAT. The six methods are benchmarked in terms of the angles of attack, axial induction factors and the local lift and drag coefficients, identifying that most perform well and converge with each other despite the different underlying assumptions or modelling approaches. However, given the limitations and inherent dependency on internal parameters, the line averaging and SAM are suggested for general flow analysis application.     

Near wake Reynolds‐averaged Navier–Stokes predictions of the wake behind the MEXICO rotor in axial and yawed flow conditions

In the present paper, Reynolds‐averaged Navier–Stokes predictions of the flow field around the MEXICO rotor in yawed conditions are compared with measurements. The paper illustrates the high degree of qualitative and quantitative agreement that can be obtained for this highly unsteady flow situation, by comparing measured and computed velocity profiles for all three Cartesian velocity components along four axial transects and several radial transects. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

An actuator line method with novel blade flow field coupling based on potential flow equivalence

A Reynolds‐averaged Navier–Stokes‐embedded actuator line model for wind and tidal turbine simulation has been implemented and validated using the National Renewable Energy Laboratory Phase VI wind tunnel experimental results. Actuator line models, first introduced by Sørensen and Shen, represent the blades virtually, enabling time‐resolved rotor simulations without requiring blade boundary layer discretization. This results in a lower computational cost than blade‐resolved simulations while preserving the predominant features of the rotor flow. The present method introduces a novel technique, based on potential flow equivalence, to determine the local flow velocity at the blade, and a method of projecting the resulting momentum sources to the flow field. These methods circumvent the requirement for smearing techniques used in other actuator line models. In addition, the model is adapted for use with an unstructured mesh, thereby enabling turbine components such as the tower and nacelle to be explicitly included in the domain. The model is validated through comparison of computed integrated loads and local force coefficients with the National Renewable Energy Laboratory Phase VI experimental results. Results for local force coefficients indicate general agreement with experiment, although discrepancies associated with three‐dimensional flow effects are observed at the tips. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Wind turbine rotor‐tower interaction using an incompressible overset grid method

In this paper, 3D Navier–Stokes simulations of the unsteady flow over the NREL Phase VI turbine are presented. The computations are carried out using the structured grid, incompressible, finite volume flow solver EllipSys3D, which has been extended to include the use of overset grids. Computations are presented, firstly, on an isolated rotor, and secondly, on the downwind configuration of the turbine, which includes modelling of the rotor, tower and tunnel floor boundary. The solver successfully captures the unsteady interaction between the rotor blades and the tower wake, and the computations are in good agreement with the experimental data available. The interaction between the rotor and the tower induces significant increases in the transient loads on the blades and is characterized by an instant deloading and subsequent reloading of the blade, associated with the velocity deficit in the wake, combined with the interaction with the shed vortices, which causes a strongly time‐varying response. Finally, the results show that the rotor has a strong effect on the tower shedding frequency, causing under certain flow conditions vortex lock‐in to take place on the upper part of the tower. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Validation of a CFD model with a synchronized triple‐lidar system in the wind turbine induction zone

A novel validation methodology allows verifying a CFD model over the entire wind turbine induction zone using measurements from three synchronized lidars. The validation procedure relies on spatially discretizing the probability density function of the measured free‐stream wind speed. The resulting distributions are reproduced numerically by weighting steady‐state Reynolds averaged Navier‐Stokes simulations accordingly. The only input varying between these computations is the velocity at the inlet boundary. The rotor is modelled using an actuator disc. So as to compare lidar and simulations, the spatial and temporal uncertainty of the measurements is quantified and propagated through the data processing. For all velocity components the maximal difference between measurements and model are below 4.5% relative to the average wind speed for most of the validation space. This applies to both mean and standard deviation. One rotor radius upstream the difference reaches maximally 1.3% for the axial component. © 2017 The Authors. Wind Energy Published by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Estimating the angle of attack from blade pressure measurements on the National Renewable Energy Laboratory phase VI rotor using a free wake vortex model: yawed conditions

Wind turbine design codes for calculating blade loads are usually based on a blade element momentum (BEM) approach. Since wind turbine rotors often operate in off‐design conditions, such as yawed flow, several engineering methods have been developed to take into account such conditions. An essential feature of a BEM code is the coupling of local blade element loads with an external (induced) velocity field determined with momentum theory through the angle of attack. Local blade loads follow directly from blade pressure measurements as performed in the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) phase IV campaign, but corresponding angles of attack cannot (on principle) be measured. By developing a free wake vortex method using measured local blade loads, time‐dependent angle of attack and induced velocity distributions are reconstructed. In a previous paper, a method was described for deriving such distributions in conjunction with blade pressure measurements for the NREL phase VI wind turbine in axial (non‐yawed) conditions. In this paper, the same method is applied to investigate yawed conditions on the same turbine. The study considered different operating conditions in yaw in both attached and separated flows over the blades. The derived free wake geometry solutions are used to determine induced velocity distributions at the rotor blade. These are then used to determine the local (azimuth time dependent) angle of attack, as well as the corresponding lift and drag for each blade section. The derived results are helpful to develop better engineering models for wind turbine design codes. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Extracting the angle of attack on rotor blades from CFD simulations

In today's wind energy research, comparisons of low‐fidelity aerodynamic models with CFD simulations are common practice. While the approach for loads with respect to the rotor‐plane coordinate system such as distributed driving force or thrust is straightforward, a comparison of aerodynamic characteristics is more challenging. The radial distributions of lift, drag, and moment coefficient depend on the local angle of attack and inflow velocity, which cannot be directly determined from the flow field. It requires the elimination of the influence of the rotor blade's bound circulation and also involves the step from a three‐dimensional flow field to quantities, which depend on the blade radius. The present investigation analyzes 4 different approaches to determine the angle of attack and inflow velocity from three‐dimensional rotor simulations. In addition to 3 existing methods, a new line average technique is presented. It eliminates the effect of bound circulation by averaging along a closed shape, which is symmetric to the quarter‐chord point. All methods are assessed in cases with successively increasing complexity. The observed discrepancies are assigned to a different consideration of trailing and shed vortices. The line average approach was found to be a valuable alternative to existing approaches especially in unsteady cases and regarding the outer or tip sections of the rotor blade.     

水平轴风力机尾迹流场PIV实验研究

在水平轴风力机模型不同尖速比条件下,利用PIV粒子图像测速技术对风轮尾迹流场进行了测量。采用锁相平均测量技术,获得了风轮尾迹流场的瞬时速度场、时均速度场、涡量场等有关定量信息,为准确计算风力机的流场、载荷和气动特性等提供了依据。实验结果表明:风轮叶片尾缘后侧的尾迹中存在轴向速度亏损区。尾迹在叶片尾缘生成后,随即发生膨胀。直到风轮下游2倍弦长以后,尾迹低速区逐渐衰减,轴向速度不断增加,尾迹区同时发生收缩现象。风轮尾迹涡从叶片尾缘脱落后,在向下游发展传播过程中,尾迹涡的涡心所形成的运动轨迹是与风轮叶片旋转方向相反的螺旋线,涡量数值随着螺旋线向风轮下游的延伸而减小。由于风力机叶片数少,相邻叶片之间的尾迹基本上不存在互相干扰的现象。     

Measurements of a 2-Stage Axial Turbine with Shrouded Rotor Cavities

This paper presents preliminary measurements of a 2-stage axial turbine with shrouded rotor cavities. The research facility and measurement techniques are reported. The flow field at both inlet and outlet was measured using 5-hole probes as well as temperature probes. The measurement results indicate that the inlet flow field is periodical in the tangential direction due to the influence of the first-stator leading-edge. The horse-shoe vortexes cause substantial flow blockage and turbulence near the endwall. Unsteady measurements of the rotor radial tip clearance show that one of the second-rotor blades has a little bigger clearance than the others.     

Flow characterization in the near‐wake region of a horizontal axis wind turbine

An experimental study is conducted to investigate the flow dynamics within the near‐wake region of a horizontal axis wind turbine using particle image velocimetry (PIV). Measurements were performed in the horizontal plane in a row of four radially distributed measurement windows (tiles), which are then patched together to obtain larger measurement field. The mean and turbulent components of the flow field were measured at various blade phase angles. The mean velocity and turbulence characteristics show high dependency on the blade phase angle in the near‐wake region closer to the blade tip and become phase independent further downstream at a distance of about one rotor diameter. In the near‐wake region, both the mean and turbulent characteristics show a systemic variation with the phase angle in the blade tip region, where the highest levels of turbulence are observed. The streamlines of the instantaneous velocity field at a given phase allowed to track a tip vortex which showed wandering trend. The tip vortices are mostly formed at r/R > 1, which indicates the wake expansion. Results also show the gradual movement of the vortex region in the axial direction, which can be attributed to the dynamics of the helical tip vortices which after being generated from the tip, rotate with respect to the blade and move in the axial direction because of the axial momentum of the flow. The axial velocity deficit was compared with other laboratory and field measurements. The comparison shows qualitative similarity. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The upstream flow of a wind turbine: blockage effect

The flow upstream a wind turbine is studied in order to investigate blockage effects. We use rotating wind turbine models in a wind tunnel, where velocity measurements have been made both with hot‐wire anemometry up to approximately 4.5 diameters (D) upstream the turbine, as well as laser particle image velocimetry measurements close to the turbine rotor. Also, numerical simulations have been carried out by means of a finite volume code. The measurements show, among other things, that the flow is affected more than 3 D upstream the rotor plane. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Validation of the first LiDAR wind resource assessment buoy system offshore the Northeast United States

The US offshore wind industry is maturing with several projects in various stages of development. These projects require site wind and environmental data before and during operation. Conventional techniques such as fixed‐bottom meteorological towers present economical and permitting challenges for the US. Floating Light Detection and Ranging (LiDAR) buoys offer significant advantages including reduced costs, less permitting, and reusability. This paper presents the validation of the first floating LiDAR buoy in Northeast US waters. The buoy, named DeepCLiDAR, includes a LiDAR, ecological monitoring sensors, and metocean sensors. A three‐phase LiDAR validation plan was executed, and its results are presented. The objective of the validation plan was to verify the accuracy of measurements made by the LiDAR buoy in wave environments against an unmoving reference wind measurement. Due to a lack of reference met masts, the use of a LiDAR on land as a baseline reference was implemented for validation. Comparison to a reference LiDAR instead of a traditional meteorological tower was a unique approach required in the Northeast US waters due to the absence of a reference fixed‐bottom meteorological tower in the region at the time of this study. The testing included a comparison of wind speed measurements made by the buoy deployed 15 km offshore from the mainland and a land‐based reference LiDAR located on a nearby island. This paper presents the methodology and results of this program, which indicate favorable agreement. This was the first such validation program in the Northeast USA which is now seeing rapid development of offshore wind.     

水平轴风力机尾迹流场试验

在水平轴风力机模型不同尖速比条件下,利用旋转单斜丝热线在风轮下游进行尾迹流场速度测量。采用周期性采样和锁相平均技术热线测量技术,获得了风轮下游尾迹三维流场的定量信息,为准确计算风力机的流场、载荷和气动特性等提供了依据。试验结果表明:风轮下游尾迹区内气流存在明显的三维性。尾迹在向风轮下游的发展传播过程中,尾迹中心形成的运动轨迹是与风轮叶片旋转方向相反的螺旋线。尾迹区内的速度亏损随风轮下游轴向位置的增加而减弱,在气流向下游流动的过程中尾迹速度亏损值逐渐衰减,尾迹区的宽度不断扩大,并逐渐与主流掺混融合。尾迹区内相同轴向位置上不同叶高处的速度型相似。在叶片的尾迹区内,流动的紊流强度大大高于周围的非尾迹区,其中紊流强度径向、切向分量较大,轴向分量最小,尾迹区内的紊流具有高度不均匀性。     

Aeroelastic validation and Bayesian updating of a downwind wind turbine

Downwind wind turbine blades are subjected to tower wake forcing at every rotation, which can lead to structural fatigue. Accurate characterisation of the unsteady aeroelastic forces in the blade design phase requires detailed representation of the aerodynamics, leading to computationally expensive simulation codes, which lead to intractable uncertainty analysis and Bayesian updating. In this paper, a framework is developed to tackle this problem. Full, detailed aeroelastic model of an experimental wind turbine system based on 3‐D Reynolds‐averaged Navier‐Stokes is developed, considering all structural components including nacelle and tower. This model is validated against experimental measurements of rotating blades, and a detailed aeroelastic characterisation is presented. Aerodynamic forces from prescribed forced‐motion simulations are used to train a time‐domain autoregressive with exogenous input (ARX) model with a localised forcing term, which provides accurate and cheap aeroelastic forces. Employing ARX, prior uncertainties in the structural and rotational parameters of the wind turbine are introduced and propagated to obtain probabilistic estimates of the aeroelastic characteristics. Finally, the experimental validation data are used in a Bayesian framework to update the structural and rotational parameters of the system and thereby reduce uncertainty in the aeroelastic characteristics.     

Validation of the actuator line method using near wake measurements of the MEXICO rotor

The purpose of the present work is to validate the capability of the actuator line method to compute vortex structures in the near wake behind the MEXICO experimental wind turbine rotor. In the MEXICO project/MexNext Annex, particle image velocimetry measurements have made it possible to determine the exact position of each tip vortex core in a plane parallel to the flow direction. Determining center positions of the vortex cores makes it possible to determine the trajectory of the tip vortices, and thus the wake expansion in space, for the analyzed tip speed ratios. The corresponding cases, in terms of tip speed ratios, have been simulated by large‐eddy simulations using a Navier–Stokes code combined with the actuator line method. The flow field is analyzed in terms of wake expansion, vortex core radius, circulation and axial and radial velocity distributions. Generally, the actuator line method generates significantly larger vortex cores than in the experimental cases, but predicts the expansion, the circulation and the velocity distributions with satisfying results. Additionally, the simulation and experimental data are used to test three different techniques to compute the average axial induction in the wake flow. These techniques are based on the helical pitch of the tip vortex structure, 1D momentum theory and wake expansion combined with mass conservation. The results from the different methods vary quite much, especially at high values of λ. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.