• Journal of Wind Energy
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• v.14 no.4
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• pp.68-74
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• 2023

Research is being actively conducted to increase energy production by increasing the length of wind turbine blades. However, it is difficult to manufacture and transport large-scale blades. Various studies are being conducted on the concept of separate wind turbine blades considering transportation methods and maintenance. In this study, various methods of dividing blades and assembling the divided blades were reviewed. The position of the division when the blades are divided was analyzed.

• Wind and Structures
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• v.32 no.3
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• pp.267-281
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• 2021

Bending-twisting coupling induced in big composite wind turbine blades is one of the passive control mechanisms which is exploited to mitigate loads incurred due to deformation of the blades. In the present study, flutter characteristics of bend-twist coupled blades, designed for load alleviation in wind turbine systems, are investigated by time-domain analysis. For this purpose, a baseline full GFRP blade, a bend-twist coupled full GFRP blade, and a hybrid GFRP and CFRP bend-twist coupled blade is designed for load reduction purpose for a 5 MW wind turbine model that is set up in the wind turbine multi-body dynamic code PHATAS. For the study of flutter characteristics of the blades, an over-speed analysis of the wind turbine system is performed without using any blade control and applying slowly increasing wind velocity. A detailed procedure of obtaining the flutter wind and rotational speeds from the time responses of the rotational speed of the rotor, flapwise and torsional deformation of the blade tip, and angle of attack and lift coefficient of the tip section of the blade is explained. Results show that flutter wind and rotational speeds of bend-twist coupled blades are lower than the flutter wind and rotational speeds of the baseline blade mainly due to the kinematic coupling between the bending and torsional deformation in bend-twist coupled blades.

• Proceedings of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers Conference
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• 2006.11a
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• pp.345-346
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• 2006

This study proposes a development of blades for the 6W class small wind turbine system, which is applicable to relatively low speed region like Korea, and very easy to pitch control. The materials of the blades was used for the still. Electrical properties of blades improved by increasing with wind speed. The maximum output showed at $10^{\circ}$ of pitch angle and about 3.8[W] at 5.5[m/s] of wind speed.

• Wind and Structures
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• v.7 no.5
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• pp.305-316
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• 2004

In this study, a wind tunnel, that has been developed for experiments of wind turbine rotor blades, has been considered. The deviations of the measurements have been examined after this wind tunnel had been introduced and the measurements on it had been explained. Two different wind turbine rotor blades miniatures have been used for getting better results from the experiments. The accuracy of measurements have been experimented three times repetitively and examined statistically. As a result, wind speed values which this type of wind tunnel and wind turbine rotors need for starting, wind speed in the tunnel, temperature and moisture values, the number of rotor's revolution, and the voltage that is produced in 102 ${\Omega}$ resistance and current values have been determined to be fixed by measurements used. This type of wind tunnel and wind turbine rotor' performance difference and the difference of revolution figures have been determined to be fixed by measurements used.

• Wind and Structures
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• v.30 no.2
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• pp.211-217
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• 2020

Vibrations of a wind turbine blade have a negative impact on its performance and result in failure of the blade, therefore an approach to effectively control vibration in turbine blades are sought by wind industry. The small domestic horizontal axis wind turbine blades induce flap wise (out-of-plane) vibration, due to varying wind speeds. These flap wise vibrations are transferred to the structure, which even causes catastrophic failure of the system. Shape memory alloys which possess physical property of variable stiffness across different phases are embedded into the composite blades for active vibration control. Previously Shape memory alloys have been used as actuators to change their angles and orientations in fighter jet blades but not used for active vibration control for wind turbine blades. In this work a GFRP blade embedded with Shape Memory Alloy (SMA) and tested for its vibrational and material damping characteristics, under martensitic and austenite conditions. The embedment portrays 47% reduction in displacement of blade, with respect to the conventional blade. An analytical model for the actuated smart blade is also proposed, which validates the harmonic response of the smart blade.

• Wind and Structures
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• v.20 no.5
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• pp.609-622
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• 2015

This study presents a dynamic response analysis of operational and parked wind turbines in order to gain better understanding of the roles of wind loads on turbine blades and tower in the generation of turbine response. The results show that the wind load on the tower has a negligible effect on the blade responses of both operational and parked turbines. Its effect on the tower response is also negligible for operational turbine, but is significant for parked turbine. The tower extreme responses due to the wind loads on blades and tower of parked turbine can be estimated separately and then combined for the estimation of total tower extreme response. In current wind turbine design practice, the tower extreme response due to the wind loads on blades is often represented as a static response under an equivalent static load in terms of a concentrated force and a moment at the tower top. This study presents an improved equivalent static load model with additional distributed inertial force on tower, and introduces the square-root-of-sum-square combination rule, which is shown to provide a better prediction of tower extreme response.

• Wind and Structures
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• v.24 no.3
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• pp.205-221
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• 2017

The unsteady flow field disturbance between the blades and tower is one of the primary factors affecting the aerodynamic performance of wind turbine. Based on the research object of a 3MW horizontal axis wind turbine which was developed independently by Nanjing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics, numerical simulation on the aerodynamic performance of wind turbine system in halt state with blades in different position was conducted using large eddy simulation (LES) method. Based on the 3D unsteady numerical simulation results in a total of eight conditions (determined by the relative position with the tower during the complete rotation process of the blade), the characteristics of wind pressure distributions of the wind turbine system and action mechanism of surrounding flow field were analysed. The effect of different position of blades on the aerodynamic performance of wind turbine in halt state as well as the disturbance effect was evaluated. Results of the study showed that the halt position of blades had significant effect on the wind pressure distribution of the wind turbine system as well as the characteristics of flow around. Relevant conclusions from this study provided reference for the wind-resistant design of large scale wind turbine system in different halt states.

• New & Renewable Energy
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• v.16 no.2
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• pp.1-13
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• 2020

The reduction of noise from wind turbines has been studied using various methods. Some examples include controlling wind turbine blades, designing low-noise-emitting wind turbine blades, and using trailing-edge serrations. Among these methods, serration is considered an effective noise reduction method. Various studies have aimed to understand the effects of trailing-edge serration parameters. Most studies, however, have focused on fixed-wing concepts, and few have analyzed noise reduction or developed a prediction method for rotor-type blades. Herein, a noise prediction method, composed of two noise prediction methods for a wind turbine with trailing-edge serrations, is proposed. From the flow information obtained by an in-house program (WINFAS), the noise from non-serrated blades is calculated by turbulent ingestion noise and airfoil self-noise prediction methods. The degree of noise reduction caused by the trailing-edge serrations is predicted in the frequency domain by Lyu's method. The amount of noise reduction is subtracted from the predicted result of the non-serrated blade and the total reduction of the noise from the rotor blades is calculated.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Visualization
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• v.7 no.2
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• pp.64-71
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• 2010

The flow and noise characteristics of wake behind wind-turbine blades have been investigated experimentally using a two-frame particle image velocimetry (PIV) technique. Experiments were carried out in a POSTECH subsonic large wind-tunnel ($1.8^W{\times}1.5^H{\times}4.3^L\;m^3$) with KBP-750D (3-blade type) wind-turbine model at a freestream velocity of $U_o\;=\;15\;m/s$ and a tip speed ratio $\lambda\;=\;6.14$ (2933 rpm). The wind-turbine blades are connected to an AC servo motor, brake, encoder and torque meter to control the rotational speed and to extract a synchronization signal for PIV measurements. The wake flow was measured at four azimuth angles ($\phi\;=\;0^{\circ}$, $30^{\circ}$, $60^{\circ}$ and $90^{\circ}$) of the wind-turbine blade. The dominant flow structure of the wake is large-scale tip vortices. The turbulent statistics such as turbulent intensity are weakened as the flow goes downstream due to turbulent dissipation. The dominant peak frequency of the noise signal is identical to the rotation frequency of blades. The noise seems to be mainly induced by the tip vortices.

• 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.