Design of a More Powerful Wind Turbine Blade

Design of a More Powerful Wind Turbine Blade Edward Biegert, Andres Goza, Miguel Ibarra, Ara Parsekian Advisors: Dr. David Mc. Stravick, Dr. Brent Houchens Introduction Final Design Results Wind energy is on the rise • $21 billion invested in 2009* • 39% of new U. S. power in 2009* • Government subsidies through 2012* 3500 3000 Peak power for current blade designs In order to take advantage of trends in the wind energy industry, we have designed a 90 m diameter wind turbine blade to produce more power at lower wind speeds than existing designs while addressing structural considerations. Root Airfoil: NACA 2418 Tip Airfoil: NACA 63 -418 High Lift, Structural Rigidity Medium Lift, Low Drag Power Output (k. W) 2500 2000 1500 1000 500 0 7 We constructed an iterative solver in order to optimize certain parameters in the blade design. 8 9 10 Wind Speed (m/s) 11 12 13 Turbine Performance Optimum Blade Tested using WT_Perf at 15 rpm Linear Taper Iterative Solver: 1 30 0. 9 25 Twist (degrees) 0. 8 We have built an iterative solver in Visual Basic and MATLAB which uses a Blade Element Momentum (BEM) program, WT_Perf, to optimize parameters: • Blend – how the airfoil (cross-sectional shape) varies along the blade length • Taper – how the chord length (width) of the blade varies along the length • Twist – how the airfoils rotate along the blade length Select root and tip airfoils Establish blend distributions • Linear • Quadratic • Square • Exponential Blend 0. 7 0. 6 0. 5 0. 4 0. 3 0. 2 Power Considerations • Optimized twist, taper, and blend • Potential to outperform current blades in market 20 15 10 5 0 -5 0. 1 -10 0 0 0. 2 0. 4 r/R 0. 6 0. 8 Blend Distribution 1 0 0. 2 0. 4 r/R 0. 6 0. 8 1 Twist Distribution 0 = Root Airfoil, 1 = Tip Airfoil Acknowledgements: Iterative Solver For a given blend distribution, adjust taper For a given taper, adjust twist Structural Considerations • Optimization process accounts for bending moment • Allows for long fatigue life • We gratefully acknowledge the help and guidance of our advisors, without whom this work would never have been possible • We also thank Vestas for their financial and technical support Calculate coefficient of power and bending moment using WT_Perf, assign a score *2009 Wind Technologies Market Report Compare scores and adjust parameters to maximize score Obtain optimized blade