Fully Coupled Floating Wind Turbine Simulator Based on Nonlinear Finite Element Method: Part I — Methodology

Author(s):  
Cédric Le Cunff ◽  
Jean-Michel Heurtier ◽  
Loïc Piriou ◽  
Christian Berhault ◽  
Timothée Perdrizet ◽  
...  

In the present paper, a new fully coupled simulator based on DeepLines™ software is described in order to address floating wind turbines dynamic simulation. It allows its user to take into account either separately or together the hydrodynamic and aerodynamic effects on one or several floating wind turbines. This simulator includes a non linear beam finite elements formulation to model the structural components — blades, tower, drivetrain, mooring lines and umbilicals — for both HAWT and VAWT layouts and advanced hydrodynamic capabilities to define all kinds of floating units and complex environmental loadings. The floating supports are defined with complete hydrodynamic databases computed with a seakeeping program. The aerodynamic loads acting on the turbine rotor are dynamically computed by an external aerodynamic library, which first release includes BEM (blade element moment for HAWTs) and SSM (single streamtube method for VAWTs) methods. The integration in time is performed with an implicit Newmark integration scheme.

Author(s):  
Timothée Perdrizet ◽  
Jean-Christophe Gilloteaux ◽  
David Teixeira ◽  
Gilles Ferrer ◽  
Loïc Piriou ◽  
...  

The present paper describes the validation and the modeling capabilities of a new fully coupled floating wind turbine simulator based on DeepLines™ software. A first validation, based on code comparison with NREL-FAST software, is presented and shows very good correlation on a rigidly founded 5MW wind turbine in various wind conditions despite the different modeling techniques and assumptions of the two softwares. This benchmark, in addition to the extensive validation on various offshore projects, makes us confident on DeepLines capabilities to assess founded and floating wind turbine behaviour in a complex offshore environment. Furthermore, some simulation results on jacket and floating founded wind turbines, defined in the frame of IEA OC4 project, are presented and highlight the versatility of our simulator to perform offshore and floating wind turbine optimal design.


Author(s):  
Ying Min Low ◽  
Robin S. Langley

The recognition of the need for a fully coupled analysis of deepwater floating production systems has led to the research and development of several coupled analysis tools in recent years. Barring a handful of exceptions, these tools and available commercial packages are invariably in the time domain. This has resulted in a much better understanding and confidence in time domain coupled analysis, but less so for the frequency domain approach. In this paper, the viability of frequency domain coupled analysis is explored by performing a systematic comparison of time and frequency domain methods using computer programs developed in-house. In both methods, a global coordinate system is employed where the vessel is modeled with six degrees-of-freedom, while the mooring lines and risers are discretized as lumped masses connected by extensional and rotational springs. Coupling between the vessel and the mooring lines is achieved by stiff springs, and the influence of inertia and damping from the lines are directly accounted for without the need for prior assumptions. First and second order wave forces generated from a random environment are applied on the vessel, as well as drag and inertia loading on the lines. For the time domain simulation, the Wilson-theta implicit integration scheme is employed to permit the use of relatively large time steps. The frequency domain analysis is highly efficient despite being formulated in global coordinates, owing to the banded characteristics of the mass, damping and stiffness matrices. The nonlinear drag forces are stochastically linearized iteratively. As both the time and frequency domain models of the coupled system are identical, a consistent assessment of the error induced by stochastic linearization can be made.


Author(s):  
Steven Martin ◽  
Sandy Day ◽  
Conor B. Gilmour

Two scaling methodologies are presented to address the dissimilitude normally experienced when attempting to measure global aerodynamic loads on a small scale wind turbine rotor from a full scale reference. The first, termed direct aerofoil replacement (DAR), redesigns the profile of the blade using a multipoint aerofoil optimisation algorithm, which couples a genetic algorithm (GA) and XFOIL, such that the local non-dimensional lift force is similar to the full scale. Correcting for the reduced Reynolds number in this manner allows for the non-dimensional chord and twist distributions to be maintained at small scale increasing the similitude of the unsteady aerodynamic response; an inherent consideration in the study of the aerodynamic response of floating wind turbine rotors. The second, the geometrically free rotor design (GFRD) methodology, which utilises the Python based multi-objective GA DEAP and blade-element momentum (BEM) code CCBlade, results in a more simplistic but less accurate design. Numerical simulations of two rotors, produced using the defined scaling methodologies, show an excellent level of similarity of the thrust and reasonably good torque matching for the DAR rotor to the full scale reference. The GFRD rotor design is more simplistic, and hence more readily manufacturable, than the DAR, however the aerodynamic performance match to the full scale turbine is relatively poor.


Energies ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 14 (8) ◽  
pp. 2286
Author(s):  
Yutaka Hara ◽  
Yoshifumi Jodai ◽  
Tomoyuki Okinaga ◽  
Masaru Furukawa

To investigate the optimum layouts of small vertical-axis wind turbines, a two-dimensional analysis of dynamic fluid body interaction is performed via computational fluid dynamics for a rotor pair in various configurations. The rotational speed of each turbine rotor (diameter: D = 50 mm) varies based on the equation of motion. First, the dependence of rotor performance on the gap distance (gap) between two rotors is investigated. For parallel layouts, counter-down (CD) layouts with blades moving downwind in the gap region yield a higher mean power than counter-up (CU) layouts with blades moving upwind in the gap region. CD layouts with gap/D = 0.5–1.0 yield a maximum average power that is 23% higher than that of an isolated single rotor. Assuming isotropic bidirectional wind speed, co-rotating (CO) layouts with the same rotational direction are superior to the combination of CD and CU layouts regardless of the gap distance. For tandem layouts, the inverse-rotation (IR) configuration shows an earlier wake recovery than the CO configuration. For 16-wind-direction layouts, both the IR and CO configurations indicate similar power distribution at gap/D = 2.0. For the first time, this study demonstrates the phase synchronization of two rotors via numerical simulation.


Author(s):  
H. K. Jang ◽  
H. C. Kim ◽  
M. H. Kim ◽  
K. H. Kim

Numerical tools for a single floating offshore wind turbine (FOWT) have been developed by a number of researchers, while the investigation of multi-unit floating offshore wind turbines (MUFOWT) has rarely been performed. Recently, a numerical simulator was developed by TAMU to analyze the coupled dynamics of MUFOWT including multi-rotor-floater-mooring coupled effects. In the present study, the behavior of MUFOWT in time domain is described through the comparison of two load cases in maximum operational and survival conditions. A semi-submersible floater with four 2MW wind turbines, moored by eight mooring lines is selected as an example. The combination of irregular random waves, steady currents and dynamic turbulent winds are applied as environmental loads. As a result, the global motion and kinetic responses of the system are assessed in time domain. Kane’s dynamic theory is employed to formulate the global coupled dynamic equation of the whole system. The coupling terms are carefully considered to address the interactions among multiple turbines. This newly developed tool will be helpful in the future to evaluate the performance of MUFOWT under diverse environmental scenarios. In the present study, the aerodynamic interactions among multiple turbines including wake/array effect are not considered due to the complexity and uncertainty.


1975 ◽  
Vol 97 (3) ◽  
pp. 1046-1052 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert C. Rupe ◽  
Robert W. Thresher

A lumped mass numerical model was developed which predicts the dynamic response of an inextensible mooring line during anchor-last deployment. The mooring line was modeled as a series of concentrated masses connected by massless inextensible links. A set of angles was used for displacement coordinates, and Lagrange’s Method was used to derive the equations of motion. The resulting formulation exhibited inertia coupling, which, for the predictor-corrector integration scheme used, required the solution of a set of linear simultaneous equations to determine the acceleration of each lumped mass. For the selected cases studied the results show that the maximum tension in the cable during deployment will not exceed twice the weight of the cable and anchor in water.


1995 ◽  
Vol 117 (3) ◽  
pp. 200-204 ◽  
Author(s):  
K. Pierce ◽  
A. C. Hansen

The Beddoes-Leishman model for unsteady aerodynamics and dynamic stall has recently been implemented in YawDyn, a rotor analysis code developed at the University of Utah for the study of yaw loads and motions of horizontal axis wind turbines. This paper presents results obtained from validation efforts for the Beddoes model. Comparisons of predicted aerodynamic force coefficients with wind tunnel data and data from the combined experiment rotor are presented. Also, yaw motion comparisons with the combined experiment rotor are presented. In general the comparisons with the measured data are good, indicating that the model is appropriate for the conditions encountered by wind turbines.


2021 ◽  
pp. 1-25
Author(s):  
K.A.R. Ismail ◽  
Willian Okita

Abstract Small wind turbines are adequate for electricity generation in isolated areas to promote local expansion of commercial activities and social inclusion. Blade element momentum (BEM) method is usually used for performance prediction, but generally produces overestimated predictions since the wake effects are not precisely accounted for. Lifting line theory (LLT) can represent the blade and wake effects more precisely. In the present investigation the two methods are analyzed and their predictions of the aerodynamic performance of small wind turbines are compared. Conducted simulations showed a computational time of about 149.32 s for the Gottingen GO 398 based rotor simulated by the BEM and 1007.7 s for simulation by the LLT. The analysis of the power coefficient showed a maximum difference between the predictions of the two methods of about 4.4% in the case of Gottingen GO 398 airfoil based rotor and 6.3% for simulations of the Joukowski J 0021 airfoil. In the case of the annual energy production a difference of 2.35% is found between the predictions of the two methods. The effects of the blade geometrical variants such as twist angle and chord distributions increase the numerical deviations between the two methods due to the big number of iterations in the case of LLT. The cases analyzed showed deviations between 3.4% and 4.1%. As a whole, the results showed good performance of both methods; however the lifting line theory provides more precise results and more information on the local flow over the rotor blades.


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