Uncertainty Quantification of the Effects of Blade Damage on the Actual Energy Production of Modern Wind Turbines

Francesco Papi, Lorenzo Cappugi, Simone Salvadori, Mauro Carnevale and Alessandro Bianchini
Additional contact information
Francesco Papi: Department of Industrial Engineering, Università degli Studi di Firenze, 50139 Florence, Italy
Lorenzo Cappugi: Department of Engineering, Lancaster University, Lancaster LA1 4YW, UK
Simone Salvadori: Department of Energy, Politecnico di Torino, 10129 Torino, Italy
Mauro Carnevale: Department of Mechanical Engineering, University of Bath, Bath BA2 7AY, UK
Alessandro Bianchini: Department of Industrial Engineering, Università degli Studi di Firenze, 50139 Florence, Italy

Energies, 2020, vol. 13, issue 15, 1-18

Abstract: Wind turbine blade deterioration issues have come to the attention of researchers and manufacturers due to the relevant impact they can have on the actual annual energy production (AEP). Research has shown how after prolonged exposure to hail, rain, insects or other abrasive particles, the outer surface of wind turbine blades deteriorates. This leads to increased surface roughness and material loss. The trailing edge (TE) of the blade is also often damaged during assembly and transportation according to industry veterans. This study aims at investigating the loss of AEP and efficiency of modern multi-MW wind turbines due to such issues using uncertainty quantification. Such an approach is justified by the stochastic and widely different environmental conditions in which wind turbines are installed. These cause uncertainties regarding the blade’s conditions. To this end, the test case selected for the study is the DTU 10 MW reference wind turbine (RWT), a modern reference turbine with a rated power of 10 MW. Blade damage is modelled through shape modification of the turbine’s airfoils. This is done with a purposely developed numerical tool. Lift and drag coefficients for the damaged airfoils are calculated using computational fluid dynamics. The resulting lift and drag coefficients are used in an aero-servo-elastic model of the wind turbine using NREL’s code OpenFAST. An arbitrary polynomial chaos expansion method is used to estimate the probability distributions of AEP and power output of the model when blade damage is present. Average AEP losses of around 1% are predicted mainly due to leading-edge blade damage. Results show that the proposed method is able to account for the uncertainties and to give more meaningful information with respect to the simulation of a single test case.

Keywords: uncertainty quantification; wind energy; wind turbine; blade damage; AEP (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q Q0 Q4 Q40 Q41 Q42 Q43 Q47 Q48 Q49 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (6)

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