Development of a novel design approach for the optimum design of offshore wind turbine blades
During the last decades, wind turbine technology development has been phenomenal in the renewable field, as we are witnessing the construction of enormous wind turbines in the middle of oceans. The blades of wind turbines are an engineering marvel consisting of complex curved geometry surfaces. Opti...
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| Tipo de recurso: | tesis de maestría |
| Fecha de publicación: | 2022 |
| País: | España |
| Institución: | Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya (UPC) |
| Repositorio: | UPCommons. Portal del coneixement obert de la UPC |
| Idioma: | inglés |
| OAI Identifier: | oai:upcommons.upc.edu:2117/376851 |
| Acceso en línea: | https://hdl.handle.net/2117/376851 |
| Access Level: | acceso abierto |
| Palabra clave: | Wind turbines -- Equipment and supplies -- Design and construction Offshore wind power plants Computational fluid dynamics -- Industrial applications Turbines -- Blades -- Design and construction Wind Energy Wind Turbine Blade Blade Design Blade Element Momentum Computational Fluid Dynamics Optimisation Aerogeneradors -- Aparells i accessoris -- Disseny i construcció Parcs eòlics marins Dinàmica de fluids computacional -- Aplicacions industrials Àrees temàtiques de la UPC::Energies::Energia eòlica::Aerogeneradors |
| Sumario: | During the last decades, wind turbine technology development has been phenomenal in the renewable field, as we are witnessing the construction of enormous wind turbines in the middle of oceans. The blades of wind turbines are an engineering marvel consisting of complex curved geometry surfaces. Optimising the blade shape can significantly improve the energy output. This project focused on the study of the operating logic of wind turbines, and in particular, their blades’ design. XFOIL was used to study the aerodynamic behaviour of the NACA four-digit airfoils family. This study allowed to characterise the aerodynamic properties of each airfoil, which were then validated by direct comparison with Computational Fluid Dynamics simulations’ results and third- party experimental work. Then, an algorithm based on the Blade Element Momentum methodology was programmed, to configure and predict the performance of a certain blade design through and iterative process. Optimisation methods were applied to find a set of profiles, chord and attack and twist angles distribution, to compose a blade design that optimises the aerodynamic performance of the blade, thus maximising the harvestable energy from the wind. The optimisation resulted in a blade design that has increased the power obtained by 67% with respect to the non-optimised base case. |
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