• Wind and Structures
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• v.37 no.6
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• pp.413-423
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• 2023

Wind turbines are usually steel hollow structures that can be vulnerable to dramatic failures due to high-intensity wind (HIW) events, which are classified as a category of localized windstorms that includes tornadoes and downbursts. Analyzing Wind Turbines (WT) under tornadoes is a challenging-to-achieve task because tornadoes are much more complicated wind fields compared with the synoptic boundary layer wind fields, considering that the tornado's 3-D velocity components vary largely in space. As a result, the supporting tower of the wind turbine and the blades will experience different velocities depending on the location of the event. Wind farms also extend over a large area so that the probability of a localized windstorm event impacting one or more towers is relatively high. Therefore, the built-in-house numerical code "HIW-WT" has been developed to predict the straining actions on the blades considering the variability of the tornado's location and the blades' pitch angle. The developed HIWWT numerical model incorporates different wind fields that were generated from developed CFD models. The developed numerical model was applied on an actual wind turbine under three different tornadoes that have different tornadic structure. It is found that F2 tornado wind fields present significant hazard for the wind turbine blades and have to be taken into account if the hazardous impact of this type of unexpected load is to be avoided.

• Wind and Structures
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• v.35 no.5
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• pp.353-368
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• 2022

Wind turbine blades are adjusted in real-time according to the wind conditions and blade deformations to improve power generation efficiency. It is necessary to predict and reduce the aeroelastic deformations of wind turbine blades. In this paper, the equivalent model of the blade is established by the finite element method (FEM), and the aerodynamic load of the blade is evaluated based on the blade element momentum (BEM) theory. The aeroelastic coupling model is established, in which the bending-torsion coupling effect of the blade is taken into account. The steady and dynamic aeroelastic deformations are calculated. The influences of the blade section's shear centre position and the blade's sweepback design on the deformations are analyzed. The novel approaches of reducing the twist angle of the blade by changing the shear centre position and sweepback of the blade are presented and proven to be feasible.

• 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.

• 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.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Manufacturing Process Engineers
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• v.11 no.1
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• pp.107-112
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• 2012

Air flow and its pressure at electric fan according to three, four and five blades are analyzed in this study. As the number of blades increases at the same condition of specification, air tends to converge and becomes natural wind but higher power is consumed. And the velocity of wind is decreased as the space between winds becomes narrow. The turbulent flow is happened in the center of the body of revolution and the kinetic energy becomes largest in case of three blades. The pressure is decreased than atmospheric pressure from fan to outlet. As the number of blades increases, the pressure drop becomes smaller and is smallest in case of the fan with three blades. As the study result, The electric fan with three blades is thought to be effective in view of power consumption and design.

• Coupled systems mechanics
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• v.7 no.2
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• pp.233-254
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• 2018

In order to reduce the dependency on fossil fuels, a policy to increase the production capacity of wind turbine is set up. This can be achieved with increasing the dimensions of offshore wind turbine blades. However, this increase in size implies serious problems of stability and durability. Considering the cost of large turbines and financial consequences of their premature failure, it is imperative to carry out numerical simulations over long periods. Here, an energy-conserving time-stepping scheme is proposed in order to ensure the satisfying computation of long-term response. The proposed scheme is implemented for three-dimensional solid based on Biot strain measures, which is used for modeling flexible blades. The simulations are performed at full spatial scale. For reliable design process, the wind loads should be represented as realistically as possible, including the fluid-structure interaction (FSI) dynamic effects on wind turbine blades. However, full-scale 3D FSI simulations for long-term wind loading remain of prohibitive computation cost. Thus, the model to quantify the wind loads proposed here is a simple, but not too simple to be representative for preliminary design studies.

• Smart Structures and Systems
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• v.31 no.5
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• pp.469-483
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• 2023

The dynamic characteristics of wind turbine blades are usually monitored by contact sensors with the disadvantages of high cost, difficult installation, easy damage to the structure, and difficult signal transmission. In view of the above problems, based on computer vision technology and the improved YOLOv5 (You Only Look Once v5) deep learning model, a non-contact dynamic characteristic monitoring method for wind turbine blade is proposed. First, the original YOLOv5l model of the CSP (Cross Stage Partial) structure is improved by introducing the CSP2_2 structure, which reduce the number of residual components to better the network training speed. On this basis, combined with the Deep sort algorithm, the accuracy of structural displacement monitoring is mended. Secondly, for the disadvantage that the deep learning sample dataset is difficult to collect, the blender software is used to model the wind turbine structure with conditions, illuminations and other practical engineering similar environments changed. In addition, incorporated with the image expansion technology, a modeling-based dataset augmentation method is proposed. Finally, the feasibility of the proposed algorithm is verified by experiments followed by the analytical procedure about the influence of YOLOv5 models, lighting conditions and angles on the recognition results. The results show that the improved YOLOv5 deep learning model not only perform well compared with many other YOLOv5 models, but also has high accuracy in vibration monitoring in different environments. The method can accurately identify the dynamic characteristics of wind turbine blades, and therefore can provide a reference for evaluating the condition of wind turbine blades.

• Journal of the Korean Institute of Illuminating and Electrical Installation Engineers
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• v.27 no.8
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• pp.75-82
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• 2013

We propose a fiber grating sensor system for condition monitoring of large scale wind turbine blades. For the feasibility test of the proposed sensor system, a down-scaled wind turbine has been constructed and experimented. Fiber grating sensors were attached on a blade surface for distributed strain and temperature measurements. An optical rotary joint was used to transmit optical signals between the FBG sensor array and the signal processing unit. Instead of broadband light source, we used a wavelength-swept fiber laser to obtain high output power density. A spectrometer demodulation is used to alleviate the nonlinear wavelength tuning problem of the laser source. With the proposed sensor system we could measure dynamic strain and temperature profiles at multi-positions of rotating wind turbine blades.

• Journal of Aerospace System Engineering
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• v.12 no.3
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• pp.58-63
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• 2018

This work dealt with the design and manufacturing of composite blades of a vertical axis wind turbine system. In this work, aerodynamic and structural designs of sandwich composite blades for a vertical axis wind turbine system were performed. First, the aerodynamic and structural design requirements of the composite blades were investigated. After the structural design was complete, a structural analysis of the wind turbine blades was performed using the finite element analysis method. It was performed with the stress and displacement analysis at the applied load condition. A design modification for the structurally weak part was proposed as a result of the structural analysis. Through another structural analysis, it was confirmed that the final designed blade structure is safe.

• 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.