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All sources NASA NTRS DOE OSTI

NASA NTRS1984

Review of the DOE/NASA wind turbine engineering information system

A statistical analysis of data obtained from the Technology and Engineering Information Systems was made. The systems analyzed consist of the following elements: (1) sensors which measure critical parameters (e.g., wind speed and direction, output power, blade loads and component vibrations); (2) remote multiplexing units (RMUs) on each wind turbine which frequency-modulate, multiplex and transmit sensor outputs; (3) on-site instrumentation to record, process and display the sensor output; and (4) statistical analysis of data. Two examples of the capabilities of these systems are presented. The first illustrates the standardized format for application of statistical analysis to each directly measured parameter. The second shows the use of a model to estimate the variability of the rotor thrust loading, which is a derived parameter. Previously announced in STAR as N82-23696

Neustadter, H. E.↗

DOE OSTI2013

Computational Mechanics Research and Support for Aerodynamics and Hydraulics at TFHRC (Year 3 Quarter 2 Progress Report)

The computational fluid dynamics (CFD) and computational structural mechanics (CSM) focus areas at Argonne’s Transportation Research and Analysis Computing Center (TRACC) initiated a project to support and compliment the experimental programs at the Turner-Fairbank Highway Research Center (TFHRC) with high performance computing based analysis capabilities in August 2010. The project was established with a new interagency agreement between the Department of Energy and the Department of Transportation to provide collaborative research, development, and benchmarking of advanced three-dimensional computational mechanics analysis methods to the aerodynamics and hydraulics laboratories at TFHRC for a period of five years, beginning in October 2010. The analysis methods employ well benchmarked and supported commercial computational mechanics software. Computational mechanics encompasses the areas of Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD), Computational Wind Engineering (CWE), Computational Structural Mechanics (CSM), and Computational Multiphysics Mechanics (CMM) applied in Fluid-Structure Interaction (FSI) problems. The major areas of focus of the project are wind and water effects on bridges — superstructure, deck, cables, and substructure (including soil), primarily during storms and flood events — and the risks that these loads pose to structural failure. For flood events at bridges, another major focus of the work is assessment of the risk to bridges caused by scour of stream and riverbed material away from the foundations of a bridge. Other areas of current research include modeling of the salt spray transport into bridge girders to address suitability of using weathering steel in bridges, CFD analysis of the operation of the wind tunnel in the TFHRC wind engineering laboratory, and coupling of CFD and CSM software to solve fluid structure interaction problems, primarily analysis of bridge cables in wind. This quarterly report documents technical progress on the project tasks for the period of January through March 2013.

Lottes, S. A.↗

DOE OSTI2012

Computational Mechanics Research and Support for Aerodynamics and Hydraulics at TFHRC: Year 2 Quarter 1 Progress Report

The computational fluid dynamics (CFD) and computational structural mechanics (CSM) focus areas at Argonne's Transportation Research and Analysis Computing Center (TRACC) initiated a project to support and compliment the experimental programs at the Turner-Fairbank Highway Research Center (TFHRC) with high performance computing based analysis capabilities in August 2010. The project was established with a new interagency agreement between the Department of Energy and the Department of Transportation to provide collaborative research, development, and benchmarking of advanced three-dimensional computational mechanics analysis methods to the aerodynamics and hydraulics laboratories at TFHRC for a period of five years, beginning in October 2010. The analysis methods employ well-benchmarked and supported commercial computational mechanics software. Computational mechanics encompasses the areas of Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD), Computational Wind Engineering (CWE), Computational Structural Mechanics (CSM), and Computational Multiphysics Mechanics (CMM) applied in Fluid-Structure Interaction (FSI) problems. The major areas of focus of the project are wind and water effects on bridges - superstructure, deck, cables, and substructure (including soil), primarily during storms and flood events - and the risks that these loads pose to structural failure. For flood events at bridges, another major focus of the work is assessment of the risk to bridges caused by scour of stream and riverbed material away from the foundations of a bridge. Other areas of current research include modeling of flow through culverts to improve design allowing for fish passage, modeling of the salt spray transport into bridge girders to address suitability of using weathering steel in bridges, CFD analysis of the operation of the wind tunnel in the TFHRC wind engineering laboratory. This quarterly report documents technical progress on the project tasks for the period of October through December 2011.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗

DOE OSTI2012

Computational mechanics research and support for aerodynamics and hydraulics at TFHRC

The computational fluid dynamics (CFD) and computational structural mechanics (CSM) focus areas at Argonne's Transportation Research and Analysis Computing Center (TRACC) initiated a project to support and compliment the experimental programs at the Turner-Fairbank Highway Research Center (TFHRC) with high performance computing based analysis capabilities in August 2010. The project was established with a new interagency agreement between the Department of Energy and the Department of Transportation to provide collaborative research, development, and benchmarking of advanced three-dimensional computational mechanics analysis methods to the aerodynamics and hydraulics laboratories at TFHRC for a period of five years, beginning in October 2010. The analysis methods employ well benchmarked and supported commercial computational mechanics software. Computational mechanics encompasses the areas of Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD), Computational Wind Engineering (CWE), Computational Structural Mechanics (CSM), and Computational Multiphysics Mechanics (CMM) applied in Fluid-Structure Interaction (FSI) problems. The major areas of focus of the project are wind and water effects on bridges - superstructure, deck, cables, and substructure (including soil), primarily during storms and flood events - and the risks that these loads pose to structural failure. For flood events at bridges, another major focus of the work is assessment of the risk to bridges caused by scour of stream and riverbed material away from the foundations of a bridge. Other areas of current research include modeling of flow through culverts to improve design allowing for fish passage, modeling of the salt spray transport into bridge girders to address suitability of using weathering steel in bridges, CFD analysis of the operation of the wind tunnel in the TFHRC wind engineering laboratory. This quarterly report documents technical progress on the project tasks for the period of January through March 2012.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗

DOE OSTI2018

Studying the Dependence of the Aerodynamic Characteristics of Rotating Cylinders on the Rake Angle of Air Flow

The results of experimental studies on estimating the lift force and lift coefficient of a rotating cylinder of constant cross section are presented. The data on the effect of the flow rake angle on the aerodynamic characteristics of rotating cylinders within a range of angles from 0° to 90° are analyzed. It has been established that a decrease in the lift coefficient is observed at flow rake angles above 30°, so the wind engine element shows a positive result within a range of rake angles from–30 ° ≤ α ≤ 30°. The data of these experimental studies can be used for the development of wind engines with blades designed as rotating cylinders with a smooth surface.

71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS, GENERAL PHYSIC↗

DOE OSTI2012

Systems Engineering Applications to Wind Energy Research, Design, and Development (Poster)

Over the last few decades, wind energy has evolved into a large international industry involving major players in the manufacturing, construction, and utility sectors. Coinciding with the industry's growth, significant innovation in the technology has resulted in larger turbines with lower associated costs of energy and more complex designs in all subsystems. However, as the deployment of thetechnology grows, and its role within the electricity sector becomes more prominent, so has the expectations of the technology in terms of performance, reliability, and cost. The industry currently partitions its efforts into separate paths for turbine design, plant design and development, grid interaction and operation, and mitigation of adverse community and environmental impacts. Theseactivities must be integrated to meet a diverse set of goals while recognizing trade-offs between them. To address these challenges, the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) has embarked on the Wind Energy Systems Engineering (WESE) initiative to use methods of systems engineering in the research, design, and development of wind energy systems. Systems engineering is a field that has along history of application to complex technical systems. The work completed to date represents a first step in understanding this potential. It reviews systems engineering methods as applied to related technical systems and illustrates how these methods can be combined in a WESE framework to meet the research, design, and development needs for the future of the industry.

17 WIND ENERGY↗

DOE OSTI2022

Surface engineering in wind turbine tribology

Not Available

Doll, G. L.↗

DOE OSTI2018

Wind Gust Characterization at Wind Turbine Relevant Heights in Moderately Complex Terrain

Improved understanding of wind gusts in complex terrain is critically important to wind engineering and specifically the wind energy industry. Observational data from 3D sonic anemometers deployed at 3 and 65 m at a site in moderately complex terrain within the northeastern United States are used to calculate 10 descriptors of wind gusts and to determine the parent distributions that best describe these parameters. It is shown that the parent distributions exhibit consistency across different descriptors of the gust climate. Specifically, the parameters that describe the gust intensity (gust amplitude, rise magnitude, and lapse magnitude; i.e., properties that have units of length per time) fit the two-parameter Weibull distribution, those that are unitless ratios (gust factor and peak factor) are described by log-logistic distributions, and all other properties (peak gust, rise and lapse times, gust asymmetric factor, and gust length scale) are lognormally distributed. It is also shown that gust factors scale with turbulence intensity, but gusts are distinguishable in power spectra of the longitudinal wind component (i.e., they have demonstrably different length scales than the average eddy length scale). Gust periods at the lower measurement height (3 m) are consistent with shear production, whereas at 65 m they are not. At this site, there is only a weak directional dependence of gust properties on site terrain and land cover variability along sectorial transects, but large gust length scales and gust factors are more likely to be observed in unstable atmospheric conditions.

17 WIND ENERGY↗

DOE OSTI2016

FAST Modularization Framework for Wind Turbine Simulation: Full-System Linearization: Preprint

The wind engineering community relies on multiphysics engineering software to run nonlinear time-domain simulations e.g. for design-standards-based loads analysis. Although most physics involved in wind energy are nonlinear, linearization of the underlying nonlinear system equations is often advantageous to understand the system response and exploit well-established methods and tools for analyzing linear systems. This paper presents the development and verification of the new linearization functionality of the open-source engineering tool FAST v8 for land-based wind turbines, as well as the concepts and mathematical background needed to understand and apply it correctly.

17 WIND ENERGY↗

DOE OSTI2024

DRDMannTurb: A Python package for scalable, data-driven synthetic turbulence

Synthetic turbulence models (STMs) are used in wind engineering to generate realistic flow fields and are employed as inputs to industrial wind simulations. Examples include prescribing inlet conditions in large eddy simulations that model loads on wind turbines and tall buildings. We are interested in STMs capable of generating fluctuations based on prescribed second-moment statistics since such models can simulate environmental conditions that closely resemble on-site observations. To this end, the widely used Mann model (see Mann, 1994, 1998) is the inspiration for DRDMannTurb. The Mann model is described by three physical parameters: a magnitude parameter influencing the global variance of the wind field and corresponding to the Kolmogorov constant multiplied by the rate of viscous dissipation of the turbulent kinetic energy to the two-thirds, αϵ 2/3 , a turbulence length scale parameter L, and a nondimensional parameter Γ related to the lifetime of the eddies. A number of studies, as well as international standards (e.g., those by the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC)), include recommended values for these three parameters with the goal of standardizing wind simulations according to observed energy spectra. Yet, having only three parameters, the Mann model faces limitations in accurately representing the diversity of observable spectra. This Python package enables users to extend the Mann model and more accurately fit field measurements through flexible neural network models of the eddy lifetime function. Following Keith et al. (2021), we refer to this class of models as Deep Rapid Distortion (DRD) models. DRDMannTurb also includes a general module implementing an efficient method for synthetic turbulence generation based on a domain decomposition technique. This technique is also described in Keith et al. (2021).

17 WIND ENERGY↗

DOE OSTI2016

Usage of Parameterized Fatigue Spectra and Physics-Based Systems Engineering Models for Wind Turbine Component Sizing: Preprint

Software models that use design-level input variables and physics-based engineering analysis for estimating the mass and geometrical properties of components in large-scale machinery can be very useful for analyzing design trade-offs in complex systems. This study uses DriveSE, an OpenMDAO-based drivetrain model that uses stress and deflection criteria to size drivetrain components within a geared, upwind wind turbine. Because a full lifetime fatigue load spectrum can only be defined using computationally-expensive simulations in programs such as FAST, a parameterized fatigue loads spectrum that depends on wind conditions, rotor diameter, and turbine design life has been implemented. The parameterized fatigue spectrum is only used in this paper to demonstrate the proposed fatigue analysis approach. This paper details a three-part investigation of the parameterized approach and a comparison of the DriveSE model with and without fatigue analysis on the main shaft system. It compares loads from three turbines of varying size and determines if and when fatigue governs drivetrain sizing compared to extreme load-driven design. It also investigates the model's sensitivity to shaft material parameters. The intent of this paper is to demonstrate how fatigue considerations in addition to extreme loads can be brought into a system engineering optimization.

17 WIND ENERGY↗

DOE OSTI2014

Proceedings of the National Renewable Energy Laboratory Wind Energy Systems Engineering Workshop

The second National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) Wind Energy Systems Engineering Workshop was held in Broomfield, Colorado, from January 29 to February 1, 2013. The event included a day-and-a-half workshop exploring a wide variety of topics related to system modeling and design of wind turbines and plants. Following the workshop, 2 days of tutorials were held at NREL, showcasing software developed at Sandia National Laboratories, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration's Glenn Laboratories, and NREL. This document provides a brief summary of the various workshop activities and includes a review of the content and evaluation results from attendees.

17 WIND ENERGY↗

NASA NTRS1983

Effects of wind on turbofan engines in outdoor static test stands

Wind can affect measured thrust and can cause turbofan engine speed to fluctuate during outdoor testing. Techniques used at an outdoor test stand at NASA Lewis Research Center to make testing easier and faster and to improve data repeatability include using an inflow control device (ICD) to make fan speed steadier, taking many raw data samples for better averaging, and correcting thrust for wind direction and speed. Data from engine tests are presented to show that the techniques improve repeatability of thrust and airflow measurements under various wind conditions.

Mcardle, J. G.↗

NASA NTRS1983

Effects of wind on turbofan engines in outdoor static test stands

Mcardle, J. G.↗

DOE OSTI2012

Offshore Wind Energy Systems Engineering Curriculum Development

Utility-scale electricity produced from offshore wind farms has the potential to contribute significantly to the energy production of the United States. In order for the U.S. to rapidly develop these abundant resources, knowledgeable scientists and engineers with sound understanding of offshore wind energy systems are critical. This report summarizes the development of an upper-level engineering course in "Offshore Wind Energy Systems Engineering." This course is designed to provide students with a comprehensive knowledge of both the technical challenges of offshore wind energy and the practical regulatory, permitting, and planning aspects of developing offshore wind farms in the U.S. This course was offered on a pilot basis in 2011 at the University of Massachusetts and the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), TU Delft, and GL Garrad Hassan have reviewed its content. As summarized in this report, the course consists of 17 separate topic areas emphasizing appropriate engineering fundamentals as well as development, planning, and regulatory issues. In addition to the course summary, the report gives the details of a public Internet site where references and related course material can be obtained. This course will fill a pressing need for the education and training of the U.S. workforce in this critically important area. Fundamentally, this course will be unique due to two attributes: an emphasis on the engineering and technical aspects of offshore wind energy systems, and a focus on offshore wind energy issues specific to the United States.

17 WIND ENERGY↗

DOE OSTI2018

Full-System Linearization for Floating Offshore Wind Turbines in OpenFAST

The wind engineering community relies on multiphysics engineering software to run nonlinear time-domain simulations (e.g., for design-standards-based loads analysis). Although most physics involved in wind energy are nonlinear, linearization of the underlying nonlinear system equations is often advantageous to understand the system properties and exploit well-established methods and tools for analyzing linear systems. This paper presents the development of the new linearization functionality of the open-source engineering tool OpenFAST for floating offshore wind turbines, as well as the concepts and mathematical background needed to understand and apply it.

17 WIND ENERGY↗

DOE OSTI2018

Full-System Linearization for Floating Offshore Wind Turbines in OpenFAST: Preprint

The wind engineering community relies on multiphysics engineering software to run nonlinear time-domain simulations, e.g. for design-standards-based loads analysis. Although most physics involved in wind energy are nonlinear, linearization of the underlying nonlinear system equations is often advantageous to understand the system properties and exploit well-established methods and tools for analyzing linear systems. This paper presents the development of the new linearization functionality of the open-source engineering tool OpenFAST for floating offshore wind turbines (FOWTs), as well as the concepts and mathematical background needed to understand and apply it correctly.

17 WIND ENERGY↗

DOE OSTI2019

Verification of Floating Offshore Wind Linearization Functionality in OpenFAST

The wind engineering community relies on multiphysics engineering software to run nonlinear time-domain simulations, e.g., for design standards-based loads analysis. Although most physics involved in wind energy are nonlinear, linearization of the underlying nonlinear system equations is often advantageous to understand the system properties and exploit well-established methods and tools for analyzing linear systems. Previous work in this area has focused on the development of the new linearization functionality of the open-source engineering tool OpenFAST for floating offshore wind turbines, as well as the concepts and mathematical background needed to understand and apply it correctly. This paper focuses on the verification of this new linearization functionality, which is carried out by comparing results to previous stable versions of FAST. A nonlinear time-domain simulation for a floating offshore platform is also compared to the time-domain response of the linearized state-space model. The linearized results show good alignment between OpenFAST and previous versions of FAST, as well as with the time-domain simulations, thereby showing the accuracy of the new features in OpenFAST.

17 WIND ENERGY↗