WIND TURBINE NOISE

MITIGATION
Wind turbine noise limits, its stress effect &
annoyance.
Presented By:-
Shubham H.
Bahirat
 Wind power
A wind turbine turns wind energy into electricity using the aerodynamic
force from the rotor blade.
When wind flows across the blade, the air pressure on one side of the
blade decreases.
The difference in air pressure across the two sides of the blade creates
both lift and drag.
The force of the lift is stronger than the drag and this causes the rotor
to spin.
The rotor connects to the generator, either directly (if it’s a direct drive
turbine) or through a shaft and a series of gears (a gearbox) that speed
up the rotation and allow for a physically smaller generator.
This translation of aerodynamic force to rotation of a generates creates
electricity. 
Wind power is used on a
commercial basis in more than half
of all the countries of the world.
Several countries have achieved
high levels of wind power
penetration
Country Stationery electricity
production

Denmark 41%

Ireland 28%

Portugal 24%

Germany 21%

Spain 19%
Installed wind power capacity
 Wind turbine noise
• Mechanical noise
Mechanical noise is generated by
various moving components like
gearbox, generator, cooling fans.
Mechanical noise sources are
peaks around certain frequencies
and harsh human ears than
broadband noise.
It can be reduced to large extent
by properly shielding the nacelle,
using sound absorbing material
and vibration suppression.
• Aerodynamic noise
Aerodynamic noise is flow induced
noise cause by interaction of flow
structures with blade wall.
As mechanical noise reduction has
resulted in aerodynamic noise
becoming a dominant noise source
in wind turbine which will be study
in details.
Aerodynamic noise from wind
turbines can be classified as inflow
turbulence noise and airfoil self-
noise.
Inflow turbulence noise mechanism:-I
Inflow turbulence (IT) noise is caused due to interaction of blade surface, especially
the leading edge, with the oncoming atmospheric turbulence.

Airfoil self-noise mechanism:-

1) Turbulent boundary layer - trailing edge noise (TBL – TE)
2) Tip noise
3) Blunt trailing edge noise
4) Separated / stalled flow noise
5) Laminar boundary layer noise
 Aerodynamic noise reduction technique

Reduction in inflow turbulence noise:-

1. Changes in leading edge shape are
found to significantly affect noise generation.
Based on this characteristic, many different
leading-edge profiles have been proposed to
mitigate IT noise.
2. 15dB noise reduction achieved
by leading edge slits as opposed to just 7dB
for conventional single wavelength serrations.

Reduction of trailing edge noise:-

1. Trailing edge noise is directly (a) (b) (c)

proportional to cos3γ.
2. noise is scattered most effectively
when the path of turbulent eddies is
perpendicular to the trailing edge.
3. Trailing edge serrations provide a way to reduce the angle between eddy
path and edge below 90°, thus decreasing the scattering of sound.
4. Experimental observations shows that wind turbine of 94m diameter with
serrations have reported reductions of 3.2 dB.
Reduction in tip noise:-
1. Tip noise is a dominant source of noise
from wind turbines at high frequencies. Over blunt,
slender and ogee type tip explored the effectiveness
of these tip shapes in mitigating tip noise.
2. Recent numerical investigations by Maizi
for reducing tip noise by using reference tip and
shark tip provided 7% noisereduction with shark tip
but with a penalty in power of 3%.
3. Such low cost CAA methodologies can
open the domain to extensive tip shape design
optimization for noise reduction and power enhancement.
Standard of sound limit :-
Percentages of residents' responses to WT impacts overall (United States) and WT noise effects
(Europe)
  Overall effects, Noise effects,
United States Europe
Talked with others 5.7% 29.7%
Tried to relax 4.1% 26.4%
Accepted it 3.8% 35.8%
Ignored it 3.6% No item
Reduced its effects (e.g., sound 3.1% 25.9%
dampening, shutting windows, closing
blinds)
Avoided it 3.0% 11.8%
Percentage of all residents reporting symtoms at least monthly by WT impact

Noise Landscape lighting Shadow-fliker

change
US Europe US Europe US Europe US Europe
Bad mood 3.3% 4.1% 2.6% 0.4% 1.8% 0.3% 2.3% 0.0%

Anger 1.1% 4.0% 1.9% 0.4% 1.7% 0.0% 0.6% 0.0%

Lack of 2.4% 3.7% 0.6% 0.0% 0.7% 0.3% 1.3% 0.2%

concentration

Difficulty falling 3.2% 4.6% 0.6% 0.0% 1.0% 1.0% 0.6% 0.0%
sleep

Otherwise not 2.7% 4.7% 0.5% 0.0% 1.1% 1.1% 0.6% 0.0%
sleeping
Conclusion:-
 Study several wind turbine noise mechanisms & mitigation methods.
 The effect of modifications on blade for noise reduction should not affect its
aerodynamic performance or a trade-off should be reached.
 Computational methods can ease design of low noise blades by reducing time and
effort.
 Full scale field implementation of new methods is required to examine their
effectiveness in actual running conditions and interaction of noise from multiple wind
turbines in farms.