Ground testing of a 1% gravo-aeroelastically scaled additively-manufactured wind turbine blade with bio-inspired structural design

Meghan Kaminski, Eric Loth, D. Todd Griffith and Qin, Chao (Chris)

Renewable Energy, 2020, vol. 148, issue C, 639-650

Abstract: A gravo-aeroelastic scaling (GAS) method is developed to design wind turbine blades that represent centrifugal, aerodynamic, and gravitational loads of extreme-scale turbines. To match these elements, certain blade characteristics are given priority: non-dimensional 1st flap-wise frequency, non-dimensional flapping tip deflection, and tip-speed-ratio. Using the GAS method, a 1% sub-scale blade was designed to match the mass distributions and ground tested to match the non-dimensional flap-wise dynamics and deflections of Sandia National Lab’s 13.2-MW blade. To the authors’ knowledge, this is the first manufactured blade model to employ gravo-aeroelastic scaling using additive manufacturing and bio-inspiration. A series of scale models were designed, built, and ground-tested using weights consistent with scaled steady rated load conditions of an extreme-scale turbine. The models designed were evolved to increase gravo-elastic scaling performance by employing lightweight bio-inspirational morphology and carbon fiber reinforcements. The final version has non-dimensional gravo-elastic errors as follows: 3% in total mass, 15.6% in deflection from ground-based loads representing full-scale steady rated conditions, and 8.1% in the first flap-wise modal frequency (when normalized by the scaled rpm for rated conditions). This model demonstrates the GAS concept can be applied to manufacture sub-scale models as small as 1% of an extreme-scale rotor blade.

Keywords: Scaling; Wind turbines; Bio-inspiration; Additive manufacturing; Structural optimization (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:renene:v:148:y:2020:i:c:p:639-650

DOI: 10.1016/j.renene.2019.10.152

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