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Aero Section
Aero Section
Introduction
We present a method to gain insight into the aeroelastic stability of wind turbine blades
using a reduced-order model that approximates the aerodynamics and structural Full blade
properties of the full blade [1]. The method can be used to study the impact of
nonlinear aerodynamics (from engineering models or CFD) on the stability of wind
turbine blades in operation or in standstill. In essence, we separate the space and time
variables, and we use the loads and motions at a given cross section to scale the loads
Generalized
and motion of the entire blade. Our approach is not a modal reduction, nor a simple 2D
cross section
cross section model, but to some extent, it is a blend between the two approaches.
❑ The generalized loads of the cross section are obtained by integrating the spanwise loads against the structural
shape function. By isolating the space variable, the scaling reduces to a 3x3 matrix (ka):
Example of Campbell diagram studying the impact of Stability Analyses & Aeroelastic Insights
engineering models on stability (dummy dataset)
We devised a method to obtain a reduced order-model of a blade using three degrees of freedom and taking as input
the 2D aerodynamics of a cross section. With this model, we can study the aeroelasticity of a blade during standstill
and operation:
❑ Using a 2D CFD solver to understand the 1st order flow physics and compare with engineering models.
❑ Using various BEM engineering models (dynamic inflow, dynamic stall) to gain insights on their impact on stability.
❑ Using parametric studies on various structural and aerodynamic parameters to trigger or prevent instabilities.
We will demonstrate these capabilities and verify our simplified approach against full 3D analyses in future work. We
expect that the model can provide a computationally efficient tool to estimate stability during the design and
optimization of a blade. The source code is provided as part of OpenFAST [3] and WELIB [4].
References
[1] Branlard, Jonkman, Porter, Vijayakumar, Jonkman, Mayda, Dixon, A generalized wind turbine cross section as a
reduced-order model to gain insights in blade aeroelastic challenges, J. Sci. Conf. Series, 2024
[2] OpenFAST, https://gtihub.com/openfast/openfast
[3] WELIB, https://github.com/ebranlard/welib/