• Ocean and Polar Research
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• v.42 no.4
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• pp.293-301
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• 2020

Blades of tidal stream turbines have to sustain many different loads during operation in the underwater environment, so securing their structural safety is a key issue. In this study, we focused on periodic loads due to wave orbital motion and propose a load reduction method with a blade design. The flap of an airplane wing is a well-known structure designed to increase lift, and it can also change the load distribution on the wing through deflection. For this reason, we adopted a passive flap structure for the load reduction and investigated its effectiveness by an analytical method based on the blade element moment theory. Flap torsional stiffness required for the design of the passive flap can be obtained by calculating the flap moment based on the analytic method. Comparison between a flapped and a fixed blade showed the effect of the flap on load reduction in a high amplitude wave condition.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.52 no.3
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• pp.485-505
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• 2014

This study aimed to develop an approach to accurately predict the wind models and wind effects of large wind turbines. The wind-induced vibration characteristics of a 5 MW tower-blade coupled wind turbine system have been investigated in this paper. First, the blade-tower integration model was established, which included blades, nacelle, tower and the base of the wind turbine system. The harmonic superposition method and modified blade element momentum theory were then applied to simulate the fluctuating wind field for the rotor blades and tower. Finally, wind-induced responses and equivalent static wind loads (ESWL) of the system were studied based on the modified consistent coupling method, which took into account coupling effects of resonant modes, cross terms of resonant and background responses. Furthermore, useful suggestions were proposed to instruct the wind resistance design of large wind turbines. Based on obtained results, it is shown from the obtained results that wind-induced responses and ESWL were characterized with complicated modal responses, multi-mode coupling effects, and multiple equivalent objectives. Compared with the background component, the resonant component made more contribution to wind-induced responses and equivalent static wind loads at the middle-upper part of the tower and blades, and cross terms between background and resonant components affected the total fluctuation responses, while the background responses were similar with the resonant responses at the bottom of tower.

• Journal of Ocean Engineering and Technology
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• v.29 no.5
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• pp.366-372
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• 2015

Ocean energy is one of the most promising renewable energy resources. In particular, South Korea is one of the countries where it is economically and technically feasible to develop tidal current power plants to use tidal current energy. In this study, based on the design code for HARP_Opt (Horizontal axis rotor performance optimizer) developed by NREL (National Renewable Energy Laboratory) in the United States, and applying the BEMT (Blade element momentum theory) and GA (Genetic algorithm), the optimal shape design and performance evaluation of the horizontal axis rotor for a 200-kW-class tidal current turbine were performed using different numbers of blades (two or three) and a pitch control method (variable pitch or fixed pitch). As a result, the VSFP (Variable Speed Fixed Pitch) turbine with three blades showed the best performance. However, the performances of four different cases did not show significant differences. Hence, it is necessary when selecting the final design to consider the structural integrity related to the fatigue, along with the economic feasibility of manufacturing the blades.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Marine Environment & Safety
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• v.28 no.7
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• pp.1222-1230
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• 2022

The rotor blade is an important component of a tidal stream turbine and is affected by a large thrust force and load due to the high density of seawater. Therefore, the performance must be secured through the geometrical and structural design of the blade and the blade structural safety to which the composite material is applied. In this study, a 1 MW class large turbine blade was designed using the blade element momentum (BEM) theory. GFRP is a fiber-reinforced plastic used for turbine blade materials. A sandwich structure was applied with CFRP to lay-up the blade cross-section. In addition, to evaluate structural safety according to flow variations, static load analysis within the linear elasticity range was performed using the fluid-structure interactive (FSI) method. Structural safety was evaluated by analyzing tip deflection, strain, and failure index of the blade due to bending moment. As a result, Model-B was able to reduce blade tip deflection and weight. In addition, safety could be secured by indicating that the failure index, inverse reserve factor (IRF), was 1 or less in all load ranges excluding 3.0*Vr of Model-A. In the future, structural safety will be evaluated by applying various failure theories and redesigning the laminated pattern as well as the change of blade material.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society for Noise and Vibration Engineering Conference
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• 2008.11a
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• pp.256-263
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• 2008

The assumed modes method is developed to derive a set of linear differential equations describing the motion of a flexible wind turbine blade and to propose an approach to investigate the forced responses result from various wind excitations. In this work, we have adopted Euler beam theory and considered that the root of the blade is clamped at the rigid hub. And the aerodynamic parameters and forces are determined based on Blade Element Momentum (BEM) theory and quasi-steady airfoil aerodynamics. Numerical calculations show that this method gives good results and it can be used fur modeling and the forced vibration analysis including the coupling effect of wind-turbine blades, as well as turbo-machinery blades, aircraft propellers or helicopter rotor blades which may be considered as straight non-uniform beams with built-in pre-twist.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Aeronautical & Space Sciences
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• v.37 no.2
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• pp.113-120
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• 2009

To numerically simulate aerodynamics of rotor-airframe interaction in a rigorous manner, we need to solve the Navier-Stokes system for a rotor-airframe combination in a single computational domain. This imposes a computational burden since rotating blades and a stationary body have to be simultaneously dealt with. An efficient alternative is a momentum source method in which the action of rotor is approximated as momentum source in a stationary mesh system built around the airframe. This makes the simulation much easier. The magnitude of the momentum source is usually evaluated by the blade element theory, which often results in a poor accuracy. In the present work, we evaluate the momentum source from the simulation data by using the Navier-Stokes equations only for a rotor system. Using this data, we simulated the time-averaged steady rotor-airfame interaction and developed the unsteady rotor-airframe interaction. Computations were carried out for the simplified rotor-airframe model (the Georgia Tech configuration) and the results were compared with experimental data. The results were in good agreement with experimental data, suggesting that the present approach is a usefull method for rotor-airframe interaction analysis.

• The KSFM Journal of Fluid Machinery
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• v.18 no.2
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• pp.14-21
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• 2015

Design lifetime of a wind turbine is required to be at least 20 years. The most important step to ensure the deign is to evaluate the loads on the wind turbine as accurately as possible. In this study, extreme design load of a offshore wind turbine using Garrad Hassan (GH) Bladed and National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) FAST codes are calculated considering structural dynamic loads. These wind turbine aeroelastic analysis codes are high efficiency for the rapid numerical analysis scheme. But, these codes are mainly based on the mathematical and semi-empirical theories such as unsteady blade element momentum (UBEM) theory, generalized dynamic wake (GDW), dynamic inflow model, dynamic stall model, and tower influence model. Thus, advanced CFD-dynamic coupling method is also applied to conduct cross verification with FAST and GH Bladed codes. If the unsteady characteristics of wind condition are strong, such as extreme design wind condition, it is possible to occur the error in analysis results. The NREL 5 MW offshore wind turbine model as a benchmark case is practically considered for the comparison of calculated designed loads. Computational analyses for typical design load conditions such as normal turbulence model (NTM), normal wind profile (NWP), extreme operation gust (EOG), and extreme direction change (EDC) have been conducted and those results are quantitatively compared with each other. It is importantly shown that there are somewhat differences as maximum amount of 18% among numerical tools depending on the design load cases.

• KSCE Journal of Civil and Environmental Engineering Research
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• v.32 no.6A
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• pp.369-378
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• 2012

In this study, direct-search based optimization methods are applied for blade shape optimization of wind turbines and the optimization performances of several methods including conventional genetic algorithm, micro genetic algorithm and pattern search method are compared to propose a more efficient method. For this purpose, the currently available version of HARP_Opt (Horizontal Axis Rotor Performance Optimizer) code is enhanced to rationally evaluate the annual energy production value according to control strategies and to optimize the blade shape using pattern search method as well as genetic algorithm. The enhanced HARP_Opt code is applied to obtain the optimal turbine blade shape for 1MW class wind turbines. The results from pattern search method are compared with the results from conventional genetic algorithm and also micro genetic algorithm and it is found that the pattern search method has a better performance in achieving higher annual energy production and consistent optimal shapes and the micro genetic algorithm is better for reducing the calculation time.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Aeronautical & Space Sciences
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• v.31 no.1
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• pp.49-57
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• 2003

The flight trajectory of a boomerang is predicted with the momentum theory (actuating disk theory) and the blade element method generally used as tools to analyze in the rotary-wing aerodynamics. Boomerangs made by students are actually compared with the computational results, utilized to get the physical intuition. The transition from helicopter mode to autogyro mode with the gyroscopic precession is observed in numerical analysis and experiment like a 'flying rotor' after the boomerang taking off. The whole system is shown to be highly nonlinear and very sensitive to the initial conditions. Various flight loci may be obtained if we change the parameters.

• The KSFM Journal of Fluid Machinery
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• v.15 no.1
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• pp.21-26
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• 2012

In this investigation, the aerodynamic performance evaluation of a 1MW class blade has been performed with the purpose of the verification of target output and its clear understanding of flow field using CFD commercial code, ANSYS FLUENT. Before making progress of CFD analysis the HERACLES V2.0 software based on blade element momentum theory was applied for confirmation of quick and approximate performance in the preliminary stage. The blade was designed to produce the target output of a 1MW class at a rated wind speed of 12m/s, which consists of five different airfoils such as FFA W-301, DU91-W250, DU93-W-210, NACA 63418 and NACA 63415 from hub to tip. The mechanical power by CFD is approximately 1.195MW, which is converted into the electrical power of 1.075MW if the system loss is considered to be 0.877.