• Wind and Structures
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• v.16 no.3
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• pp.263-278
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• 2013

The fatigue load of a turbine blade has become more important because the size of commercial wind turbines has increased dramatically in the past 30 years. The reduction of the fatigue load can result in an increase in operational efficiency. This paper numerically investigates the load reduction of large wind turbine blades using active aerodynamic load control devices, namely trailing edge flaps. The PD and LQG controllers are used to determine the trailing edge flap angle; the difference between the root bending moment and its mean value during turbulent wind conditions is used as the error signal of the controllers. By numerically analyzing the effect of the trailing edge flaps on the wind turbines, a reduction of 30-50% in the standard deviation of the root bending moment was achieved. This result implies a reduction in the fatigue damage on the wind turbines, which allows the turbine blade lengths to be increased without exceeding the designed fatigue damage limit.

• Wind and Structures
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• v.36 no.4
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• pp.249-261
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• 2023

Aerodynamic force coefficients are generally prescribed by an ensemble average of ten and/or twenty 10-minute samples. However, this makes it difficult to identify the exact probability distribution and exceedance probability of the prescribed values. In this study, 12,600 10-minute samples on three tall buildings were measured, and the probability distributions were first identified and the aerodynamic force coefficients corresponding to the specific non-exceedance probabilities (cumulative probabilities) of wind load were then evaluated. It was found that the probability distributions of the mean and fluctuating aerodynamic force coefficients followed a normal distribution. The ratios of aerodynamic force coefficients corresponding to the specific non-exceedance probabilities (C_f,Non) to the ensemble average of 12,600 samples (C_f,Ens), which was defined as an adjusting factor (C_f,Non/C_f,Ens), were less than 2%. The effect of coefficient of variation of wind speed on the adjusting factor is larger than that of the annual non-exceedance probability of wind load. The non-exceedance probabilities of the aerodynamic force coefficient is between P_C,nonex = 50% and 60% regardless of force components and aspect ratios. The adjusting factors from the Gumbel distribution were larger than those from the normal distribution.

• Wind and Structures
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• v.6 no.2
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• pp.107-126
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• 2003

This paper describes a simple and practical approach through the application of Linear Stochastic Estimation (LSE) to reconstruct wind-induced pressure time series from the covariance matrix for structural load analyses on a low building roof. The main application of this work would be the reduction of the data storage requirements for the NIST aerodynamic database. The approach is based on the assumption that a random pressure field can be estimated as a linear combination of some other known pressure time series by truncating nonlinear terms of a Taylor series expansion. Covariances between pressure time series to be simulated and reference time series are used to calculate the estimation coefficients. The performance using different LSE schemes with selected reference time series is demonstrated by the reconstruction of structural load time series in a corner bay for three typical wind directions. It is shown that LSE can simulate structural load time series accurately, given a handful of reference pressure taps (or even a single tap). The performance of LSE depends on the choice of the reference time series, which should be determined by considering the balance between the accuracy, data-storage requirements and the complexity of the approach. The approach should only be used for the determination of structural loads, since individual reconstructed pressure time series (for local load analyses) will have larger errors associated with them.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Propulsion Engineers
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• v.21 no.3
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• pp.1-9
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• 2017

Numerical computations are performed to investigate the effect of pintle stroke on the performance of an internal pintle thruster. Results show that the thrust control ratio was less than 2% and the aerodynamic load ratio was 22% as the pintle stroke increased. The flow past the nozzle throat rapidly expanding because of the shape of the pintle, and a shock wave was generated. Particularly, at the pintle stroke distance of 4 and 5 mm, the shock wave hit the wall of the nozzle, results in peeling bubbles. Depending on the altitude, the thrust increased and the aerodynamic load decreased, but the difference was as small as 1.5%. In the presence of the bore, the reduction of the pintle tip area resulted in a decrease in aerodynamic load.

• Wind and Structures
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• v.38 no.3
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• pp.203-214
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• 2024

Large-span cantilevered roof represents a unique type of structure that is vulnerable to wind loads. Inspired by the need to maximumly reducing the rooftop wind loads, this study examined the feasibility of positioning vented slots on the leading edge, and the effectiveness of such aerodynamic mitigation measures are assessed via both physical and numerical simulations. The reliability of numerical simulation was evaluated via comparisons with the wind tunnel tests. The results indicated that, the variation of venting hole arrangement can cause significant change in the rooftop wind load characteristics. For the cases involved in this study, the maximum reduction of mean and peak wind suction coefficients are found to be 9% and 8% as compared to the original circular slot without venting holes. In addition, the effect of slot shape is also evident. It was shown that the triangular shaped slot tends to increase the wind suction near the leading edge, whereas the hexagonal and octagonal shaped slots are found to decrease the wind suction. In particular, with the installation of octagonal shaped slot, the maximum reduction of wind suction coefficients near the leading edge reaches up to 31% as compared to the circular shaped slot, while the maximum reduction of mean wind suction coefficients is about 30%.

• Wind and Structures
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• v.25 no.2
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• pp.101-129
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• 2017

Local transient extreme wind loads caused by group tower-related interference are among the major reasons that lead to wind-induced damage of super-large cooling towers. Four-tower arrangements are the most commonly seen patterns for super-large cooling towers. We considered five typical four-tower arrangements in engineering practice, namely, single row, rectangular, rhombic, L-shaped, and oblique L-shaped. Wind tunnel tests for rigid body were performed to determine the influence of different arrangements on static and dynamic wind loads and extreme interference effect. The most unfavorable working conditions (i.e., the largest overall wind loads) were determined based on the overall aerodynamic coefficient under different four-tower arrangements. Then we calculated the one-, two- and three-dimensional aerodynamic loads under different four-tower arrangements. Statistical analyses were performed on the wind pressure signals in the amplitude and time domains under the most unfavorable working conditions. On this basis, the non-Gaussian distribution characteristics of aerodynamic loads on the surface of the cooling towers under different four-tower arrangements were analyzed. We applied the Sadek-Simiu procedure to the calculation of two- and three-dimensional aerodynamic loads in the cooling towers under the four-tower arrangements, and the extreme wind load distribution patterns under the most unfavorable working conditions in each arrangement were compared. Finally, we proposed a uniform equation for fitting the extreme wind loads under the four-tower arrangements; the accuracy and reliability of the equation were verified. Our research findings will contribute to the optimization of the four-tower arrangements and the determination of extreme wind loads of super-large cooling towers.

• Wind and Structures
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• v.23 no.6
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• pp.559-575
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• 2016

In order to investigate the influence of different blade positions on aerodynamic load and wind loads and load-effects of large scale wind turbine tower under the halt state, we take a certain 3 MW large scale horizontal axis three-blade wind turbine as the example for analysis. First of all, numerical simulation was conducted for wind turbine flow field and aerodynamic characteristics under different halt states (8 calculating conditions in total) based on LES (large eddy simulation) method. The influence of different halt states on the average and fluctuating wind pressure coefficients of turbine tower surface, total lift force and resistance coefficient, circular flow and wake flow characteristics was compared and analysed. Then on this basis, the time-domain analysis of wind loads and load-effects was performed for the wind turbine tower structure under different halt states by making use of the finite element method. The main conclusions of this paper are as follows: The halt positions of wind blade could have a big impact on tower circular flow and aerodynamic distribution, in which Condition 5 is the most unfavourable while Condition 1 is the most beneficial condition. The wind loads and load-effects of disturbed region of tower is obviously affected by different halt positions of wind blades, especially the large fluctuating displacement mean square deviation at both windward and leeward sides, among which the maximum response occurs in $350^{\circ}$ to the tower top under Condition 8; the maximum bending moment of tower bottom occurs in $330^{\circ}$ under Condition 2. The extreme displacement of blade top all exceeds 2.5 m under Condition 5, and the maximum value of windward displacement response for the tip of Blade 3 under Condition 8 could reach 3.35 m. All these results indicate that the influence of halt positions of different blades should be taken into consideration carefully when making wind-resistance design for large scale wind turbine tower.

• Wind and Structures
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• v.35 no.5
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• pp.353-368
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• 2022

Wind turbine blades are adjusted in real-time according to the wind conditions and blade deformations to improve power generation efficiency. It is necessary to predict and reduce the aeroelastic deformations of wind turbine blades. In this paper, the equivalent model of the blade is established by the finite element method (FEM), and the aerodynamic load of the blade is evaluated based on the blade element momentum (BEM) theory. The aeroelastic coupling model is established, in which the bending-torsion coupling effect of the blade is taken into account. The steady and dynamic aeroelastic deformations are calculated. The influences of the blade section's shear centre position and the blade's sweepback design on the deformations are analyzed. The novel approaches of reducing the twist angle of the blade by changing the shear centre position and sweepback of the blade are presented and proven to be feasible.

• Wind and Structures
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• v.32 no.5
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• pp.471-485
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• 2021

Onshore wind turbines may experience substantially different wind loads depending on their working conditions, i.e. rotation velocity of rotor blades, incoming freestream wind velocity, pitch angle of rotor blades, and yaw angle of the wind-turbine tower. In the present study, aerodynamic loads acting on a horizontal axis wind turbine were accordingly quantified for the high tip speed ratio (TSR) at high yaw angles because these conditions have previously not been adequately addressed. This was analyzed experimentally on a small-scale wind-turbine model in a boundary layer wind tunnel. The wind-tunnel simulation of the neutrally stratified atmospheric boundary layer (ABL) developing above a flat terrain was generated using the Counihan approach. The ABL was simulated to achieve the conditions of a wind-turbine model operating in similar inflow conditions to those of a prototype wind turbine situated in the lower atmosphere, which is another important aspect of the present work. The ABL and wind-turbine simulation length scale factors were the same (S=300) in order to satisfy the Jensen similarity criterion. Aerodynamic loads experienced by the wind-turbine model subjected to the ABL simulation were studied based on the high frequency force balance (HFFB) measurements. Emphasis was put on the thrust force and the bending moment because these two load components have previously proven to be dominant compared to other load components. The results indicate several important findings. The loads were substantially higher for TSR=10 compared to TSR=5.6. In these conditions, a considerable load reduction was achieved by pitching the rotor blades. For the blade pitch angle at 90°, the loads were ten times lower than the loads of the rotating wind-turbine model. For the blade pitch angle at 12°, the loads were at 50% of the rotating wind-turbine model. The loads were reduced by up to 40% through the yawing of the wind-turbine model, which was observed both for the rotating and the parked wind-turbine model.

• International Journal of Aeronautical and Space Sciences
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• v.5 no.1
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• pp.64-74
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• 2004

The Grid is a communication service that collaborates dispersed highperformance computers so that those can be shared and worked together. It enablesthe analysis of large-scale problem with the reduction of computation time bycollaborating high performance computing resources in dispersed organizations. Thus,the present paper focuses on the efficient flow calculation using the Grid. To increaseparallel efficiency, a simple load balance algorithm for the Grid computing is proposedand applied to various aerodynamic problems.