Effects of Blade Boundary Layer Transition and Daytime Atmospheric Turbulence on Wind Turbine Performance Analyzed with Blade-resolved Simulation and Field Data

Download or read book Effects of Blade Boundary Layer Transition and Daytime Atmospheric Turbulence on Wind Turbine Performance Analyzed with Blade-resolved Simulation and Field Data written by Tarak Nandi and published by . This book was released on 2017 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Relevant to utility scale wind turbine functioning and reliability, the present work focuses on enhancing our understanding of wind turbine responses from interactions between energy-dominant daytime atmospheric turbulence eddies and rotating blades of a GE 1.5 MW wind turbine using a unique data set from a GE field experiment and computer simulations at two levels of fidelity.Previous studies have shown that the stability state of the lower troposphere has a major impact on the coherent structure of the turbulence eddies, with corresponding differences in wind turbine loading response. In this study, time-resolved aerodynamic data measured locally at the leading edge and trailing edge of three outer blade sections on a GE 1.5 MW wind turbine blade and high-frequency SCADA generator power data from a daytime field campaign are combined with computer simulations that mimic the GE wind turbine within a numerically generated atmospheric boundary layer (ABL) flow field which is a close approximation of the atmospheric turbulence experienced by the wind turbine in the field campaign. By combining the experimental and numerical data sets, this study describes the time-response characteristics of the local loadings on the blade sections in response to nonsteady nonuniform energetic atmospheric turbulence eddies within a daytime ABL which have spatial scale commensurate with that of the turbine blade length. This study is the first of its kind where actuator line and blade boundary layer resolved CFD studies of a wind turbine field campaign are performed with the motivation to validate the numerical predictions with the experimental data set, and emphasis is given on understanding the influence of the laminar to turbulent transition process on the blade loadings.The experimental and actuator line method data sets identify three important response time scales quantified at the blade location: advective passage of energy dominant eddies (~ 25 - 50 s), blade rotation (1P, ~3 s) and sub-1P scale (