Nonlinear model predictive control of wind turbines using LIDAR

LIDAR systems are able to provide preview information of wind disturbances at various distances in front of wind turbines. This technology paves the way for new control concepts in wind energy such as feedforward control and model predictive control. This paper compares a nonlinear model predictive controller with a baseline controller, showing the advantages of using the wind predictions in the optimization problem to reduce wind turbine extreme and fatigue loads on tower and blades as well as to limit the pitch rates. The wind information is obtained by a detailed simulation of a LIDAR system. The controller design is evaluated and tested in a simulation environment with coherent gusts and a set of turbulent wind fields using a detailed aeroelastic model of the wind turbine over the full operation region. Results show promising load reduction up to 50% for extreme gusts and 30% for lifetime fatigue loads without negative impact on overall energy production. This controller can be considered as an upper bound for other LIDAR assisted controllers that are more suited for real time applications. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Verification of the mean shape of extreme gusts

For design load calculations for wind turbines it is necessary to determine the fatigue loads as well as the extreme loads. An advanced method has been presented previously to incorporate extreme turbulence gusts in wind field simulation, the so‐called ‘NewGust’ method. The gust generator works by constraining the random parameters of a stochastic wind field simulator. The present article deals with the verification of the mean shape of extreme gusts. On the basis of a statistical analysis an expression of the mean gust shape is obtained. This theoretical gust shape is compared with the mean gust shape determined from both simulated and measured turbulence. The resemblance is remarkably good, which demonstrates the viability of the NewGust method. Copyright © 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Effects of power reserve control on wind turbine structural loading

As the penetration of wind energy in worldwide electrical utility grids increases, there is a growing interest in the provision of active power control (APC) services from wind turbines and power plants to aid in maintaining grid stability. Recent research has focused on the design of active power controllers for wind turbines that can provide a range of APC services including inertial, primary frequency and secondary frequency control. An important consideration for implementing these controllers in practice is assessing their impact on the lifetime of wind turbine components. In this paper, the impact on the structural loads of a wind turbine providing a power reserve is explored by performing a load suite analysis for several torque‐based control strategies. Power reserve is required for providing those APC services that require the ability of the wind turbine to supply an increase in power. To study this, we performed a load suite on a simulated model of a research turbine located at the National Wind Technology Center at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory. Analysis of the results explores the effect of the different reserve strategies on turbine loading. In addition, field‐test data from the turbine itself are presented to augment and support the findings from the simulation study results. Results indicate that all power‐reserve strategies tend to decrease extreme loads and increase pitch actuation. Fatigue loads tend to be reduced in faster winds and increased in slower winds, but are dependent on reserve‐controller design. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Unbalanced voltage faults: the impact on structural loads of doubly fed asynchronous generator wind turbines

This paper investigates the impact that unbalanced voltage faults have on wind turbine structural loads. In such cases, electromagnetic torque oscillations occur at two times the supply voltage frequency. The objectives of this work are to quantify wind turbine structural loads induced by unbalanced voltage faults relative to those during normal operation; and to evaluate the potential for reducing structural loads with the control of the generator. The method applied is integrated dynamic analysis. Namely, dynamic analysis with models that consider the most important aeroelastic, electrical, and control dynamics in an integrated simulation environment based on an aeroelastic code (HAWC2) and software for control design (Matlab/Simulink). In the present analysis, 1 Hz equivalent loads are used to compare fatigue loads, whereas maximum–minimum values are used to compare extreme loads. A control concept based on resonant filters demonstrates reduction of the structural loads (shaft torsion and tower top side‐to‐side moment) induced by an unbalanced voltage fault.Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Design of a tower and drive train damping controller for the three‐bladed controls advanced research turbine operating in design‐driving load cases

Wind turbines experience both fatigue and extreme loading, and individual components of a wind turbine are affected differently by these loads. The current practice to achieve the typical 20 year design life is to build a turbine with robust components that can withstand fatigue and extreme loads for this duration. Unfortunately, overbuilding of components may lead to higher‐than‐necessary initial capital costs. In this research, we studied design‐driving load cases and designed advanced control algorithms aimed at enabling a decrease in initial capital cost. Our approach used a subset of a full International Electrotechnical Commission loads case analysis and selected major components experiencing design‐driving extreme loads that can be alleviated using advanced control. We first describe the results from the loads case analysis and then discuss the components on which we focused the advanced control design. We next describe the controller design and finally compare the results from the advanced controller simulations with those using a baseline controller. The baseline consists of a nonlinear torque controller below rated wind speed and a proportional‐integral‐derivative‐like controller above rated and the advanced controller uses proportional feedback and state‐space design to reduce tower bending and drive train torsional loads. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Model of wind shear conditional on turbulence and its impact on wind turbine loads

We analyse high‐frequency wind velocity measurements from two test stations over a period of several years and at heights ranging from 60 to 200 m, with the objective to validate wind shear predictions as used in load simulations for wind turbine design. A validated wind shear model is thereby proposed for flat terrain and that can significantly decrease the uncertainty associated with fatigue load predictions for wind turbines with large rotors. An essential contribution is the conditioning of wind shear on the 90% quantile of wind turbulence, such that the appropriate magnitude of the design fatigue load is achieved. The proposed wind shear model based on the wind measurements is thereby probabilistic in definition, with shear jointly distributed with wind turbulence. A simplified model for the wind shear exponent is further derived from the full stochastic model. The fatigue loads over different turbine components are evaluated under the full wind measurements, using the developed wind shear model and with standard wind conditions prescribed in the IEC 61400‐1 ed. 3. The results display the effect of the Wöhler exponent and reveal that under moderate turbulence, the effect of wind shear is most pronounced on the blade flap loads. It is further shown that under moderate wind turbulence, the wind shear exponents may be over‐specified in the design standards, and a reduction of wind shear exponent based on the present measurements can contribute to reduced fatigue damage equivalent loads on turbine blades. Although the influence of wind shear on extreme loads was found to be negligible, the IEC 61400‐1 wind shear definition was found to result in non‐conservative estimates of the 50 year extreme blade deflection toward the tower, especially under extreme turbulence conditions. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

极端风况下双转子风力机降载复合控制策略

为降低双转子风力机在极端风况下的大波动载荷,基于双转子风力机气动与控制仿真系统,提出了基于独立变桨自抗扰控制器和偏航模糊控制器的降载复合控制策略,并分析了正常风况和极端风况下该策略的控制效果。结果表明：与传统PID独立变桨控制相比,在极端运行阵风和极端湍流模型下,独立变桨自抗扰控制方法使叶根挥舞弯矩标准差减小18%以上;与传统恒速偏航控制相比,在极端风向变化下,偏航模糊控制方法使偏航轴承滚动力矩标准差减小约27%。降载复合控制策略有效降低了极端风况下双转子风力机的大载荷,抑制了功率波动。     

Experimental assessment of a blended fatigue-extreme controller employing trailing edge flaps

This paper presents an experimental assessment of a blended fatigue-extreme controller for load control employing trailing edge flaps on a lab-scale wind turbine. The controller blends between a repetitive model predictive controller that targets fatigue loads and a dedicated extreme load controller, which consists of a simple on-off load control strategy. The Fatigue controller uses the flapwise blade root bending moments of the three blades as input sensors. The Extreme controller additionally uses on-blade angle of attack and velocity measurements as well as acceleration measurements to detect extreme events and to allow for a fast reaction. The experiments are conducted on the Berlin Research Turbine within the large wind tunnel of the TU Berlin. In order to reproduce test cases with deterministic extreme wind conditions that follow industry standards, the wind tunnel was redesigned. The analyzed test cases are extreme direction change, extreme coherent gust, extreme operating gust and extreme coherent gust with direction change. The test cases are analyzed by on-blade angle of attack and velocity measurements. The load control performance of the Blended controller is compared to the pure fatigue oriented and the pure extreme load controller. The Blended controller achieves a maximum flapwise blade root bending moment reduction of 23%, which is comparable to the reduction achieved by the Extreme controller.     

Wind turbine fatigue loads as a function of atmospheric conditions offshore

In recent years, there has been a growing interest by the wind energy community to assess the impact of atmospheric stability on wind turbine performance; however, up to now, typically, stability is considered in several distinct arbitrary stability classes. As a consequence, each stability class considered still covers a wide range of conditions. In this paper, wind turbine fatigue loads are studied as a function of atmospheric stability without a classification system, and instead, atmospheric conditions are described by a continuous joint probability distribution of wind speed and stability. Simulated fatigue loads based upon this joint probability distribution have been compared with two distinct different cases, one in which seven stability classes are adopted and one neglecting atmospheric stability by following International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) standards. It is found that for the offshore site considered in this study, fatigue loads of the blade root, rotor and tower loads significantly increase if one follows the IEC standards (by up to 28% for the tower loads) and decrease if one considers several stability classes (by up to 13% for the tower loads). The substantial decrease found for the specific stability classes can be limited by considering one stability class that coincides with the mean stability of a given hub height wind speed. The difference in simulated fatigue loads by adopting distinct stability classes is primarily caused by neglecting strong unstable conditions for which relatively high fatigue loads occur. Combined, it is found that one has to carefully consider all stability conditions in wind turbine fatigue load simulations. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Influence of atmospheric stability on wind turbine loads

Simulations of wind turbine loads for the NREL 5 MW reference wind turbine under diabatic conditions are performed. The diabatic conditions are incorporated in the input wind field in the form of wind profile and turbulence. The simulations are carried out for mean wind speeds between 3 and 16 m s ^{? 1} at the turbine hub height. The loads are quantified as the cumulative sum of the damage equivalent load for different wind speeds that are weighted according to the wind speed and stability distribution. Four sites with a different wind speed and stability distribution are used for comparison. The turbulence and wind profile from only one site is used in the load calculations, which are then weighted according to wind speed and stability distributions at different sites. It is observed that atmospheric stability influences the tower and rotor loads. The difference in the calculated tower loads using diabatic wind conditions and those obtained assuming neutral conditions only is up to 17%, whereas the difference for the rotor loads is up to 13%. The blade loads are hardly influenced by atmospheric stability, where the difference between the calculated loads using diabatic and neutral input wind conditions is up to 3% only. The wind profiles and turbulence under diabatic conditions have contrasting influences on the loads; for example, under stable conditions, loads induced by the wind profile are larger because of increased wind shear, whereas those induced by turbulence are lower because of less turbulent energy. The tower base loads are mainly influenced by diabatic turbulence, whereas the rotor loads are influenced by diabatic wind profiles. The blade loads are influenced by both, diabatic wind profile and turbulence, that leads to nullifying the contrasting influences on the loads. The importance of using a detailed boundary‐layer wind profile model is also demonstrated. The difference in the calculated blade and rotor loads is up to 6% and 8%, respectively, when only the surface‐layer wind profile model is used in comparison with those obtained using a boundary‐layer wind profile model. Finally, a comparison of the calculated loads obtained using site‐specific and International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) wind conditions is carried out. It is observed that the IEC loads are up to 96% larger than those obtained using site‐specific wind conditions.Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Wind turbine extreme gust control

This paper focuses on the problem of extreme wind gust and direction change recognition (EG&DR) and control (EEC). An extreme wind gust with direction change can lead to large loads on the turbine (causing fatigue) and unnecessary turbine shutdowns by the supervisory system caused by rotor overspeed. The proposed EG&DR algorithm is based on a non‐linear observer (extended Kalman filter) that estimates the oblique wind inflow angle and the blade effective wind speed signals, which are then used by a detection algorithm (cumulative sum test) to recognize extreme events. The non‐linear observer requires that blade root bending moments measurements (in‐plane and out‐of‐plane) are available. Once an extreme event is detected, an EEC algorithm is activated that: (i) tries to prevent the rotor speed from exceeding the overspeed limit by fast collective blade pitching; and (ii) reduces 1p blade loads by means of individual pitch control algorithm, designed in an ?_∞ optimal control setting. The method is demonstrated on a complex non‐linear test turbine model. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Post‐installation adaptation of offshore wind turbine controls

The cost of offshore wind energy can be reduced by incorporating control strategies to reduce the support structures' load effects into the structural design process. While effective in reducing the cost of support structures, load‐reducing controls produce potentially costly side effects in other wind turbine components and subsystems. This paper proposes a methodology to mitigate these side effects at the wind farm level. The interaction between the foundation and the surrounding soil is a major source of uncertainty in estimating the safety margins of support structures. The safety margins are generally closely correlated with the modal properties (natural frequencies, damping ratios). This admits the possibility of using modal identification techniques to reassess the structural safety after installing and commissioning the wind farm. Since design standards require conservative design margins, the post‐installation safety assessment is likely to reveal better than expected structural safety performance. Thus, if load‐reducing controls have been adopted in the structural design process, it is likely permissible to reduce the use of these during actual operation. Here, the probabilistic outcome of such a two‐stage controls adaptation is analyzed. The analysis considers the structural design of a 10 MW monopile offshore wind turbine under uncertainty in the site‐specific soil conditions. Two control strategies are considered in separate analyses: (a) tower feedback control to increase the support structure's fatigue life and (b) peak shaving to increase the support structure's serviceability capacity. The results show that a post‐installation adaptation can reduce the farm‐level side‐effects of load‐reducing controls by up to an order of magnitude.     

极限环境载荷诱导风力机结构振动影响分析

风力机桩基、塔架及连接部件构成的支撑结构属顶部承担较大质量的力学结构,地震对其造成的影响远大于常规建筑.针对上述问题,基于NREL开发计算平台,联合TurbSim、AeroDyn、FAST及Seismic,对变风载荷、变地震载荷(波形、强度)下的风力机动力学响应进行研究.发现:地震横波对风力机结构响应造成剧烈影响,纵波...     

Improving wind turbine drivetrain designs to minimize the impacts of non‐torque loads

Non‐torque loads induced by the wind turbine rotor overhang weight and aerodynamic forces can greatly affect drivetrain loads and responses. If not addressed properly, these loads can result in a decrease in gearbox component life. This work uses analytical modeling, computational modeling and experimental approaches to evaluate two distinct drivetrain designs that minimize the effects of non‐torque loads on gearbox reliability: a modified three‐point suspension drivetrain studied by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) Gearbox Reliability Collaborative (GRC) and the Pure Torque® drivetrain developed by Alstom. In the original GRC drivetrain, the unequal planetary load distribution and sharing were present and they can lead to gear tooth pitting and reduce the lives of the planet bearings. The NREL GRC team modified the original design of its drivetrain by changing the rolling element bearings in the planetary gear stage. In this modified design, gearbox bearings in the planetary gear stage are anticipated to transmit non‐torque loads directly to the gearbox housing rather than the gears. Alstom's Pure Torque drivetrain has a hub support configuration that transmits non‐torque loads directly into the tower rather than through the gearbox as in other design approaches. An analytical model of Alstom's Pure Torque drivetrain provides insight into the relationships among turbine component weights, aerodynamic forces and the resulting drivetrain loads. In Alstom's Pure Torque drivetrain, main shaft bending loads are orders of magnitude lower than the rated torque and hardly affected by wind speed, gusts or turbine operations. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Structural load mitigation control for wind turbines: A new performance measure

Structural loads of wind turbines are becoming critical because of the growing size of wind turbines in combination with the required dynamic output demands. Wind turbine tower and blades are therefore affected by structural loads. To mitigate the loads while maintaining other desired conditions such as the optimization of power generated or the regulation of rotor speed, advanced control schemes have been developed during the last decade. However, conflict and trade‐off between structural load reduction capacity of the controllers and other goals arise; when trying to reduce the structural loads, the power production or regulation performance may be also reduced. Suitable measures are needed when designing controllers to evaluate the control performance with respect to the conflicting control goals. Existing measures for structural loads only consider the loads without referring to the relationship between loads and other control performance aspects. In this contribution, the conflicts are clearly defined and expressed to evaluate the effectiveness of control methods by introducing novel measures. New measures considering structural loads, power production, and regulation to prove the control performance and to formulate criteria for controller design are proposed. The proposed measures allow graphical illustration and numerical criteria describing conflicting control goals and the relationship between goals. Two control approaches for wind turbines, PI and observer‐based state feedback, are defined and used to illustrate and to compare the newly introduced measures. The results are obtained by simulation using Fatigue, Aerodynamics, Structures, and Turbulence (FAST) tool, developed by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), USA.     

Optimization‐based load reduction during rapid shutdown of multi‐megawatt wind turbine generators

This paper describes an optimization‐based approach to reducing extreme structural loads during rapid or emergency shutdown of multi‐megawatt wind turbine generators. The load reduction problem is cast into an optimal control formulation, and a simple, low‐order model is developed in order for this optimization problem to be tractable in reasonable time using state‐of‐the‐art numerical methods. To handle the variations in wind speed and turbulence inherent to wind turbine operation as well as the presence of model mismatch, a real‐time optimization strategy based on fast sensitivity updates is also considered, whose online computational burden is limited to the repeated solution of quadratic programs that are designed offline. The low‐order model and both the open‐loop and closed‐loop optimal control strategies are validated against a high‐fidelity model in the simulation environment Bladed ? for an industrial 3 MW wind turbine. Under favorable shutdown scenarios, i.e. when the wind turbine is operating properly and the actuators and sensors are not faulty, large reductions of the first compressive peak and subsequent compressive/tensile peaks of the tower load pattern are obtained at various above‐rated wind speeds compared with normal pitch control shutdown. Extension to more challenging shutdown scenarios are also discussed. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Response analysis and comparison of a spar‐type floating offshore wind turbine and an onshore wind turbine under blade pitch controller faults

This paper analyses the effects of three pitch system faults on two classes of wind turbines, one is an onshore type and the other a floating offshore spar‐type wind turbine. A stuck blade pitch actuator, a fixed value fault and a bias fault in the blade pitch sensor are considered. The effects of these faults are investigated using short‐term extreme response analysis with the HAWC2 simulation tool. The main objectives of the paper are to investigate how the different faults affect the performance of wind turbines and which differences exist in the structural responses between onshore and floating offshore wind turbines. Several load cases are covered in a statistical analysis to show the effects of faults at different wind speeds and fault amplitudes. The severity of individual faults is categorized by the extreme values the faults have on structural loads. A pitch sensor stuck is determined as being the most severe case. Comparison between the effects on floating offshore and onshore wind turbines show that in the onshore case the tower, the yaw bearing and the shaft are subjected to the highest risk, whereas in the offshore case, the shaft is in this position. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

An investigation of variable power collective pitch control for load mitigation of floating offshore wind turbines

This paper investigates the loads on offshore floating wind turbines and a new control method that can be used to reduce these loads. In this variable power collective pitch control method, the rated generator speed, which is the set point that the collective pitch control attempts to drive the actual generator speed towards, is no longer a constant value but instead is a variable that depends on the platform pitch velocity. At a basic physical level, this controller achieves the following: as the rotor of a floating turbine pitches upwind, the controller adjusts so as to extract more energy from the wind by increasing the rated generator speed and thus damps the motion; as the rotor pitches downwind, less energy is extracted because the controller reduces the rated generator speed and again damps the motion. This method is applied to the NREL 5 MW wind turbine model, in above rated conditions where the platform motion is most problematic. The results indicate significant load reductions on key structural components, at the expense of minor increases in power and speed variability. The loads on the blades and tower are investigated more generally, and simple dynamic models are used to gain insight into the behavior of floating wind turbine systems. It is clear that for this particular design, aerodynamic methods for reducing platform motion and tower loads are likely inadequate to allow for a viable design, so new designs or possibly new control degrees of freedom are needed. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Long‐term loads for a monopile‐supported offshore wind turbine

Accurate prediction of long‐term ‘characteristic’ loads associated with an ultimate limit state for design of a 5‐MW bottom‐supported offshore wind turbine is the focus of this study. Specifically, we focus on predicting the long‐term fore–aft tower bending moment at the mudline and the out‐of‐plane bending moment at the blade root of a monopile‐supported shallow‐water offshore wind turbine. We employ alternative probabilistic predictions of long‐term loads using inverse reliability procedures in establishing the characteristic loads for design. Because load variability depends on the environmental conditions (defining the wind speed and wave height), we show that long‐term predictions that explicitly account for such load variability are more accurate, especially for environmental states associated with above‐rated wind speeds and associated wave heights. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.