Anand Natarajan

Statistical Extreme Load Extrapolation With Quadratic Distortions for Wind Turbines

Extrapolation of extreme loads using turbulent wind samples of various mean speeds and random starting points is addressed using probability distribution functions that are suitably distorted to fit the peak extremes. The tail of the extreme value distribution of the simulated loads is required to fit accurately and this tail is extrapolated to a 50‐year exceedance probability to determine the characteristic load. The Gumbel distribution with a quadratic distortion is especially addressed due to its asymptotic theoretical validity for Gaussian loads. The blade root moments and the hub moments are studied here with respect to their behavior under extrapolation using a quadratic Gumbel distribution. Verification with a large number of random seeds at various mean wind speeds is done, so as to assess the accuracy of the extrapolation and the convergence of the extrapolated load. Methods of accounting for the variance in the extrapolated load with changes in the random wind seeds are proposed.

Mapping Wind Farm Loads and Power Production - A Case Study on Horns Rev 1

This paper describes the development of a wind turbine (WT) component lifetime fatigue load variation map within an offshore wind farm. A case study on the offshore wind farm Horns Rev I is conducted with this purpose, by quantifying wake effects using the Dynamic Wake Meandering (DWM) method, which has previously been validated based on CFD, Lidar and full scale load measurements. Fully coupled aeroelastic load simulations using turbulent wind conditions are conducted for all wind directions and mean wind speeds between cut-in and cut-out using site specific turbulence level measurements. Based on the mean wind speed and direction distribution, the representative 20-year lifetime fatigue loads are calculated. It is found that the heaviest loaded WT is not the same when looking at blade root, tower top or tower base components. The blade loads are mainly dominated by the wake situations above rated wind speed and the highest loaded blades are in the easternmost row as the dominating wind direction is from West. Regarding the tower components, the highest loaded WTs are also located towards the eastern central location. The turbines with highest power production are, not surprisingly, the ones facing a free sector towards west and south. The power production results of few turbines are compared with SCADA data. The results of this paper are expected to have significance for operation and maintenance planning, where the schedules for inspection and service activities can be adjusted to the requirements arising from the varying fatigue levels. Furthermore, the results can be used in the context of remaining fatigue lifetime assessment and planning of decommissioning.

Reliability Assessment of Fatigue Critical Welded Details in Wind Turbine Jacket Support Structures

This paper describes a probabilistic approach to reliability assessment of fatigue critical welded details in jacket support structures for offshore wind turbines. The analysis of the jacket response to the operational loads is performed using Finite Element Method (FEM) simulations in SIMULIA Abaqus. Fatigue stress cycles are computed on the jacket members by applying tower top loads from an aeroelastic simulation with superimposed marine loads and in accordance to the IEC-61400-3 guidelines for operational conditions. The combined effect of the hydrodynamic loads and the rotor loads on the jacket structure is analyzed in a de-coupled scheme, but including the structural dynamics of the support structure.The failure prediction of the welded joints, connecting the individual members of the support structure is based on SN-curves and Miners rule according to ISO 19902 and DNV-RP-C203/DNV-OS-J101. Probabilistic SN-curves and a stochastic model for Miners rule is used to estimate the reliability of selected critical welded details in the jacket structure taken into account the uncertainty in the fatigue stresses.Copyright

Variation of Extreme and Fatigue Design Loads on the Main Bearing of a Front Mounted Direct Drive System

The drivetrain of a 10 MW wind turbine has been designed as a direct drive transmission with a superconducting generator mounted in front of the hub and connected to the main frame through a King-pin stiff assembly by DNV-GL. The aeroelastic design loads of such an arrangement are evaluated based on the thrust and bending moments at the main bearing, both for ultimate design and in fatigue. It is found that the initial superconductor generator weight of 363 tons must be reduced by 25% in order not to result in higher extreme loads on main and yaw bearing than the reference10 MW geared reference drive train. A weight reduction of 50% is needed in order to maintain main bearing fatigue damage equivalent to the reference drive train. Thus a target mass of front mounted superconducting direct drive generators is found to be between 183-272 tons.

How Many Model Evaluations Are Required To Predict The AEP Of A Wind Power Plant

Wind farm flow models have advanced considerably with the use of large eddy simulations (LES) and Reynolds averaged Navier-Stokes (RANS) computations. The main limitation of these techniques is their high computational time requirements; which makes their use for wind farm annual energy production (AEP) predictions expensive. The objective of the present paper is to minimize the number of model evaluations required to capture the wind power plants AEP using stationary wind farm flow models. Polynomial chaos techniques are proposed based on arbitrary Weibull distributed wind speed and Von Misses distributed wind direction. The correlation between wind direction and wind speed are captured by defining Weibull-parameters as functions of wind direction. In order to evaluate the accuracy of these methods the expectation and variance of the wind farm power distributions are compared against the traditional binning method with trapezoidal and Simpsons integration rules.The wind farm flow model used in this study is the semi-empirical wake model developed by Larsen [1]. Three test cases are studied: a single turbine, a simple and a real offshore wind power plant. A reduced number of model evaluations for a general wind power plant is proposed based on the convergence of the present method for each case.

Influence of the control system on wind turbine reliability in extreme turbulence

One of the critical design driving load cases for modern large onshore/offshore wind turbines is power production in extreme turbulence. According to the IEC 61400-1 edition 3 design standard, the normal production extreme loads are extrapolated and compared to the extreme loads obtained under extreme turbulence input. This study shows that using a probabilistic approach and the first order reliability method, wind turbine structural reliability can be assessed when the extreme turbulence model is uncertain. The structural reliability is assessed for a wind turbine with/without structural load alleviation control features. It is shown that large uncertainties in inflow conditions and turbulence can be significantly reduced while maintaining an acceptable structural reliability through the use of advanced structural load alleviation control features. However, that comes at a cost of increased controller complexity and loss in annual energy production.

Analysis of bearing steel exposed to rolling contact fatigue

The objective of this work is to characterize fatigue damage in roller bearings under conditions of high load and slippage. A test rig constructed for rolling contact fatigue tests of rings is described, and test results are presented for rings taken from two spherical roller bearings. The preparation of the rings and the loading situation are explained. Test conditions are chosen with the aim of achieving pitting formation at the contacting surfaces. During testing the contact pressure, torque and the rotational speed are monitored and recorded. After testing the tested rings have been characterized using X-ray tomography and scanning electron microscopy. The observations confirm that rolling contact fatigue testing at high loads leads to pitting failure at the contacting surfaces. The pitting mostly appears on one side of the contact, attributed to a nonuniform contact pressure in the axial direction.

Reduction of fatigue loads on jacket substructure through blade design optimization for multi-megawatt wind turbines at 50 m water depths

This paper addresses the reduction of the fore-aft damage equivalent moment at the tower base for multi-megawatt offshore wind turbines mounted on jacket type substructures at 50 m water depths. The study investigates blade design optimization of a reference 10 MW wind turbine under standard wind conditions of onshore sites. The blade geometry and structure is optimized to yield a design that minimizes tower base fatigue loads without significant loss of power production compared to that of the reference setup. The resulting blade design is then mounted on a turbine supported by a jacket and placed under specific offshore site conditions. The new design achieves alleviate fatigue damage equivalent loads also in the jacket members, showing the possibility to prolong its design lifetime or to save material in comparison to the reference jacket. Finally, the results suggest additional benefit on the efficient design of other components such as the constituents of the nacelle.

Fusing Simulation Results From Multifidelity Aero-servo-elastic Simulators - Application To Extreme Loads On Wind Turbine

Fusing predictions from multiple simulators in the early stages of the conceptual design of a wind turbine results in reduction in model uncertainty and risk mitigation. Aero-servo-elastic is a term that refers to the coupling of wind inflow, aerodynamics, structural dynamics and controls. Fusing the response data from multiple aero-servo-elastic simulators could provide better predictive ability than using any single simulator. The co-Kriging approach to fuse information from multifidelity aero-servo-elastic simulators is presented. We illustrate the co-Kriging approach to fuse the extreme flapwise bending moment at the blade root of a large wind turbine as a function of wind speed, turbulence and shear exponent in the presence of model uncertainty and non-stationary noise in the output. The extreme responses are obtained by two widely accepted numerical aero-servo-elastic simulators, FAST and BLADED. With limited high-fidelity response samples, the co-Kriging model produced notably accurate prediction of validation data.

Mitigating the Long term Operating Extreme Load through Active Control

The parameters influencing the long term extreme operating design loads are identified through the implementation of a Design of Experiment (DOE) method. A function between the identified critical factors and the ultimate out-of-plane loads on the blade is determined. Variations in the initial blade azimuth location are shown to affect the extreme blade load magnitude during operation in normal turbulence wind input. The simultaneously controlled operation of generator torque variation and pitch variation at low blade pitch angles is detected to be responsible for very high loads acting on the blades. Through gain scheduling of the controller (modifications of the proportional Kp and the integral K gains) the extreme loads are mitigated, ensuring minimum instantaneous variations in the power production for operation above rated wind speed. The response of the blade load is examined for different values of the integral gain as resulting in rotor speed error and the rate of change of rotor speed. Based on the results a new load case for the simulation of extreme loads during normal operation is also presented.