Numerical Simulation of the Aeroelastic Response of Wind Turbines in Typhoons Based on the Mesoscale WRF Model

Long Wang, Cheng Chen, Tongguang Wang and Weibin Wang
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Long Wang: Jiangsu Key Laboratory of Hi-Tech Research for Wind Turbine Design, Nanjing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics, Nanjing 210016, China
Cheng Chen: Jiangsu Key Laboratory of Hi-Tech Research for Wind Turbine Design, Nanjing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics, Nanjing 210016, China
Tongguang Wang: Jiangsu Key Laboratory of Hi-Tech Research for Wind Turbine Design, Nanjing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics, Nanjing 210016, China
Weibin Wang: Jiangsu Key Laboratory of Hi-Tech Research for Wind Turbine Design, Nanjing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics, Nanjing 210016, China

Sustainability, 2019, vol. 12, issue 1, 1-16

Abstract: A new simulation method for the aeroelastic response of wind turbines under typhoons is proposed. The mesoscale Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) model was used to simulate a typhoon’s average wind speed field. The measured power spectrum and inverse Fourier transform method were coupled to simulate the pulsating wind speed field. Based on the modal method and beam theory, the wind turbine model was constructed, and the GH-BLADED commercial software package was used to calculate the aerodynamic load and aeroelastic response. The proposed method was applied to assess aeroelastic response characteristics of a commercial 6 MW offshore wind turbine under different wind speeds and direction variation patterns for the case study of typhoon Hagupit (2008), with a maximal wind speed of 230 km/h. The simulation results show that the typhoon’s average wind speed field and turbulence characteristics simulated by the proposed method are in good agreement with the measured values: Their difference in the main flow direction is only 1.7%. The scope of the wind turbine blade in the typhoon is significantly larger than under normal wind, while that under normal operation is higher than that under shutdown, even at low wind speeds. In addition, an abrupt change in wind direction has a significant impact on wind turbine response characteristics. Under normal operation, a sharp variation of the wind direction by 90 degrees in 6 s increases the wind turbine (WT) vibration scope by 27.9% in comparison with the case of permanent wind direction. In particular, the maximum deflection of the wind tower tip in the incoming flow direction reaches 28.4 m, which significantly exceeds the design standard safety threshold.

Keywords: typhoon; wind turbine; WRF; power spectrum; aeroelastic response; abrupt change in wind direction (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019
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