Abstracted/indexed

The application of an optical measurement method for the determination of rotor blade deformation and torsion based on digital image correlation (DIC) is presented. Measurement results are validated by comparison with comparative measurement data. Finally, aeroelastic simulation results are compared to DIC results. It is shown that the measured deformation is in very good agreement with the simulations, and therefore DIC has great potential for the experimental validation of aeroelastic codes.

Leading edge erosion has developed into a significant problem for the offshore wind industry. It is important to understand the offshore precipitation environment to model and predict the onset of erosion and to design systems to protect against it. In this study, the offshore environment was characterised using up-to-date measuring techniques. A general offshore droplet size distribution that can be used to improve lifetime prediction techniques has been presented.

One of the major challenges when working with wind turbine sensor data in practice is the presence of systematic changes in signal behaviour induced by malfunctions or maintenance actions. We found that approximately every third signal is affected by such change points and introduce an algorithm which reliably detects them in a highly automated fashion. The algorithm enables the application of data-driven techniques to monitor wind turbine components using data from commonly installed sensors.

At night, the wind direction often changes with height, and this veer affects structures near the surface like wind turbines. Wind turbines usually rotate clockwise, but this rotational direction interacts with veer to impact the flow field behind a wind turbine. If another turbine is located downwind, the direction of the upwind turbine's rotation will affect the downwind turbine.

Wind turbine blade prototypes undergo structural tests before they are used in the field so that any design failure can be detected prior to their operation. In this study, strength characteristics of a small-scale existing 5 m composite wind turbine blade is carried out utilizing the finite-element-method software package Ansys. The results show that the blade exhibits sufficient resistance against buckling. Yet, laminate failure is found to play a major role in the ultimate blade failure.

Wake losses significantly reduce the power production of utility-scale wind farms since all wind turbines are operated in a greedy, individual power maximization fashion. In order to mitigate wake losses, collective wind farm operation strategies use wake steering, in which certain turbines are intentionally misaligned with respect to the incoming wind direction. The control strategy developed is dynamic and closed-loop to adapt to changing atmospheric conditions.

This paper provides an understanding of grid-forming control of wind turbines that can enable their black-start and islanding functionalities. Four control strategies have been tested with the aim to compare their capability to deal with the energization transients of an HVDC-connected offshore wind power plant, while maintaining stable offshore voltage and frequency. This is a step forward in overcoming wind turbine control challenges to provide black-start/restoration ancillary services.

A wind turbine can actively influence its wake by turning the rotor out of the wind direction to deflect the wake away from a downstream wind turbine. This technique was tested in a field experiment at a wind farm, where the inflow and wake were monitored with remote-sensing instruments for the wind speed. The behaviour of the wake deflection agrees with the predictions of two analytical models, and a bias of the wind direction perceived by the yawed wind turbine led to suboptimal power gains.

The performance of an open-loop wake-steering controller is investigated with a new wind tunnel experiment. Three scaled wind turbines are placed on a large turntable and exposed to a turbulent inflow, resulting in dynamically varying wake interactions. The study highlights the importance of using a robust formulation and plant flow models of appropriate fidelity and the existence of possible margins for improvement by the use of dynamic controllers.

Multi-rotor wind turbines are an innovative solution to achieving cost-effective large-scale wind turbines. They utilize a large number of small rotors connected to one support structure instead of one large rotor. Benefits include reduction in cost, transport and installation simplicity, modular design, and standardization. This work compares different electrical systems in terms of cost, mass and efficiency and finds a star-type system (each rotor has its own cable) to be the most suitable.

Analytical wind turbine wake models are of high interest for wind farm designers: they provide an estimation of wake losses for a given layout at a low computational cost. Consequently they are heavily used for wind farm design and power production evaluation. While most analytical models focus on far-wake characteristics, we propose an approach that is able to represent both near- and far-wake velocity deficit, enabling the simulation of closely packed wind farms.

We extend the common characterisation and modelling of wind time series with respect to higher-order statistics. We present an approach which enables us to obtain the general multipoint statistics of wind time series measured. This work is an important step in a more comprehensive description of wind also including extreme events. Important is that we show how stochastic equations can be derived from measured wind data which can be used to model long time series.

Before constructing wind farms we need to know how much energy they will produce. This requires knowledge of long-term wind conditions from either measurements or models. At the US East Coast there are few wind measurements and little experience with offshore wind farms. Therefore, we created a satellite-based high-resolution wind resource map to quantify spatial variations in the wind conditions over potential sites for wind farms and found larger variation than modelling suggested.

We present and evaluate an improved method for predicting wind turbine power production based on measurements of the wind speed and direction profile across the rotor disk for a wind turbine in complex terrain. By comparing predictions to actual power production from a utility-scale wind turbine, we show this method is more accurate than methods based on hub-height wind speed or surface-based atmospheric characterization.

The paper presents an application of the Kalman filtering technique to estimate loads on a wind turbine. The approach combines a mechanical model and a set of measurements to estimate signals that are not available in the measurements, such as wind speed, thrust, tower position, and tower loads. The model is severalfold faster than real time and is intended to be run online, for instance, to evaluate real-time fatigue life consumption of a field turbine using a digital twin.

We propose a method for carrying out wind turbine load validation in wake conditions using measurements from forward-looking nacelle lidars. The uncertainty of aeroelastic load predictions is quantified against wind turbine on-board sensor data. This work demonstrates the applicability of nacelle-mounted lidar measurements to extend load and power validations under wake conditions and highlights the main challenges.

The manuscript deals with the aerodynamic design of slat elements for thick-base airfoils at high Reynolds numbers using integral boundary layer and computational fluid dynamics models. The results highlight aerodynamic benefits such as high stall angle, low roughness sensitivity, and higher aerodynamic efficiency than standard single-element configurations. However, this is accompanied by a steep drop in lift post-stall and potentially issues related to the structural design of the blade.

The estimation of wind resources in complex terrain is challenging as the wind conditions change significantly over short distances, different to flat terrain, where spatial changes are small. We demonstrate in this work that wind lidars can remotely map wind resources over large areas. This will have implications for the planning of wind energy projects and ultimately reduce uncertainties in wind resource estimations in complex terrain, making such areas more interesting for future development.

We have presented a methodology for including multiple wind profile shapes in a wind resource description that are identified using a data-driven approach. These shapes go beyond the height range for which conventional wind profile relationships are developed. Moreover, they include non-monotonic shapes such as low-level jets. We demonstrated this methodology for an on- and offshore reference location using DOWA data and efficiently estimated the annual energy production of a pumping AWE system.

Multi-rotor wind turbine systems show the potential to reduce the levelized cost of energy. In this study a simplified and fast method as a first venture to find an optimal number of rotors and design parameters is presented. A variety of space frame designs are dimensioned based on ultimate loads and buckling, as a preliminary step for later detailed analyses.

Robust and accurate dynamic stall modeling remains one of the most difficult tasks in wind turbine load calculations despite its long research effort in the past. The present paper describes a new second-order dynamic stall model for wind turbine airfoils. The new model is robust and improves the prediction for the aerodynamic forces and their higher-harmonic effects due to vortex shedding but also provides improved predictions for pitching moment and drag.

This paper provides a validation of satellite-acquired wind speed measurements (Sentinel-1 synthetic aperture radar Level 2 OCN) against four weather buoys and three coastal stations located around Ireland. It is shown that such satellite measurements provide a accurate assessment of long-term wind resource characteristics for both coastal and far from shore locations. This work was conducted in order to allow the use of satellite data in the planning of offshore wind farms in Ireland.

We suggest a methodology for correlating loads with component reliability of turbines in wind farms by combining physical modeling with machine learning. The suggested approach is demonstrated on an offshore wind farm for comparing performance, loads and lifetime estimations against recorded main bearing failures from maintenance reports. It is found that turbines positioned at the border of the wind farm with a higher expected AEP are estimated to experience earlier main bearing failures.

A method for performing numerical wind resource assessments in the absence of on-site measurements is presented and validated against field measurements. Numerical wind resource assessment is at least 2 orders of magnitude faster and less expensive than using conventional site measurements. This enables analysis of a larger number of projects and thereby increases the chances of discovering the best available sites. The uncertainty in mean wind speed predictions is found to be about 4 %.

Recently, there has been an increased awareness of leading-edge erosion of wind turbine blades. An option to mitigate the erosion at the leading edges is the deceleration of the wind turbine blades during severe precipitation events. This work shows that a vertically pointing radar can be used to nowcast precipitation events with the required spatial and temporal resolution. Furthermore, nowcasting allows a reduction in the rotational speed prior to the impact of precipitation on the blades.

This paper introduces the Tocha wind farm, presents the different layouts adopted in the instrumentation of the wind turbines and shows initial results. At this preliminary stage, the capabilities of the very extensive monitoring layout are demonstrated. The results presented demonstrate the ability of the different monitoring components to track the modal parameters of the system, composed of tower and rotor, and to characterize the internal loads at the tower base and blade roots.