• The Transactions of the Korean Institute of Power Electronics
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• v.27 no.5
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• pp.438-445
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• 2022

Blade efficiency decreases when the rotor speed is kept constant even though the wind speed is higher than the rated value. Therefore, a speed controller is used to regulate the rotor speed in the high-wind-speed region. In stall-blade wind turbine, the role of the speed controller is important because precise aerodynamic regulation is unavailable. In this study, an effective parameter design method of a PI speed controller is proposed to limit the speed overshoot of a type 4 wind turbine with stall blades even though wind gust occurs. The proposed method considers the efficiency characteristics of the stall blade and the mechanical inertia of the wind turbine rotor. It determines the bandwidth of the speed controller to comply with the speed limit during generator speed overshoot for the worst case of wind gust. The proposed method is verified through intensive simulations with a MATLAB/SIMULINK model and experimental results obtained using a 3 kW MG set of wind turbine simulator.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Manufacturing Process Engineers
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• v.14 no.1
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• pp.85-91
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• 2015

Wind turbine blades represent a key component of wind turbines, which extract energy from the wind. In the present study, the structural design of a small wind turbine blade is undertaken using a numerical analysis. The reliability of numerical results is verified through a comparison with the full-scale structural test data of a current blade. To modify the blade design, the blade was divided into several sections and the effect of the thickness of each section was investigated in a numerical analysis. Finally, the modified blade was designed with a lightweight and high-strength.

• Wind and Structures
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• v.17 no.6
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• pp.671-680
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• 2013

Static aeroelastic is investigated in a wind turbine blade. Imposed to different loadings, the very long and flexible structures of blades experience some changes in its preliminary geometry. This results in variations of aerodynamic loadings. An iterative approach is developed to study the interactions between structure and aerodynamics evaluating variations in induced stresses in presence of aeroelasticity phenomenon for a specific wind turbine blade. A 3D finite element model of the blade is constructed. Aerodynamic loading is applied to the model and deflected shape is extracted. Then, aerodynamic loadings are updated in accordance with the new geometry of the deflected blade. This process is repeated till the convergence is met. Different operational conditions consisting of stand-by, start-up, power production and normal shut-down events are investigated. It is revealed that stress components vary significantly in the event of power production at the rated wind speed; while it is less pronounced for the events of normal shut-down and stand-by.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society for Noise and Vibration Engineering Conference
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• 2012.10a
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• pp.725-730
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• 2012

In this paper, flow noise characteristics of Savonius-type vertical-axis wind turbines are numerically investigated using hybrid CAA techniques. High frequency harmonics as well as BPF components are identified in the predicted noise spectra from a Savonius wind turbine. As the BPF components belong to infrasound, the higher harmonic components affects human response dominantly. Further analysis is performed to investigate the reason causing the higher frequency harmonic noise by changing operational conditions of a Savonius wind turbine. Based on this result, it is revealed that the frequency of higher harmonic components is determined by the radius of blades and angular velocity of Savonius wind turbine.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Propulsion Engineers Conference
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• 2004.03a
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• pp.401-407
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• 2004

This study proposes a interim development result for the l-㎾ class small wind turbine system, which is applicable to relatively low wind speed regions like Korea and has the variable pitch control mechanism. In the aerodynamic design of the wind turbine blade, parametric studies were carried out to determine an optimum aerodynamic configuration which is not only more efficient at low wind speed but whose diameter is not much larger than similar class other blades. A light composite structure, which can endure effectively various loads, was newly designed. In order to evaluate the structural design of the composite blade, the structural analysis was performed by the finite element method. Moreover both structural safety and stability were verified through the full-scale structural test.

• Smart Structures and Systems
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• v.21 no.3
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• pp.257-262
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• 2018

Vibrational problems in the domestic Small Horizontal Axis Wind Turbines (SHAWT) are due to flap wise vibrations caused by varying wind velocities acting perpendicular to its blade surface. It has been reported that monitoring the structural health of the turbine blades requires special attention as they are key elements of a wind power generation, and account for 15-20% of the total turbine cost. If this vibration problem is taken care, the SHAWT can be made as commercial success. In this work, Shape Memory Alloy (SMA) wires made of Nitinol (Ni-Ti) alloys are embedded into the Glass Fibre Reinforced Polymer (GFRP) wind turbine blade in order to reduce the flapwise vibrations. Experimental study of Nitinol (Ni-Ti) wire characteristics has been done and relationship between different parameters like current, displacement, time and temperature has been established. When the wind turbine blades are subjected to varying wind velocity, flapwise vibration occurs which has to be controlled continuously, otherwise the blade will be damaged due to the resonance. Therefore, in order to control these flapwise vibrations actively, a non-linear current controller unit was developed and fabricated, which provides actuation force required for active vibration control in smart blade. Experimental analysis was performed on conventional GFRP and smart blade, depicted a 20% increase in natural frequency and 20% reduction in amplitude of vibration. With addition of active vibration control unit, the smart blade showed 61% reduction in amplitude of vibration.

• Proceedings of the KSME Conference
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• 2007.05b
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• pp.3050-3055
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• 2007

A wind turbine is one of the most popular energy conversion systems to generate electricity from the natural renewable energy source and an axial-flow type wind turbine is the most popular system for the electricity generation in the wind farm nowadays. In this study, a cross-flow type turbine has been studied for the application of wind turbine for electricity generation. The target capacity of electric power generation of the model wind turbine developing on the project is 12 volts, 130A/H (about 1.56kW). The important design parameters of the model turbine impeller are the inlet and exit angle of the turbine blade, number of blade, hub/tip ratio and the exit flow angle of the casing. In this study, the radial equilibrium theorem was used to decide the inlet and exit angle of the impller blade and CFD technique was used to have the performance analysis of the designed model power turbine to find out the optimum geometry of the CPT impeller and casing. The designed CPT with 24 impeller blades at ${\alpha}=82^{\circ}$, ${\beta}=40^{\circ}$ of turbine blade angle was estimated to generate 284.6 N.m of indicated torque and 2.14kW of indicated power.

• New & Renewable Energy
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• v.16 no.4
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• pp.23-32
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• 2020

The wind turbine gearbox has the longest downtime among other major turbine components such as blades, generators, and main bearings. Therefore, gearbox manufacturers conduct rig tests to evaluate conformity in terms of design and function. Rig tests, however, have limited similarity compared with atmospheric wind turbine operating conditions. Rig test conditions are thoroughly controlled and maintained by testers and the component certificates of gearboxes issued through the test cannot fulfill wind farm operator's requirements. Hence, certification bodies such as DNV-GL and UL require a mandatory gearbox field test report for type certification. The Korea Energy Agency (KEA) also introduced gearbox field test as a part of the KS type certificate in 2016, although it is optional . In this paper, gearbox field test procedures and requirements are introduced, and the first domestic application case of the test is reported. The field test was conducted with a 1.5 MW wind turbine gearbox located in Jeju as the test object.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.28 no.1
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• pp.107-127
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• 2008

Wind turbine blades are increasing in magnitude without a proportional increase of stiffness for which reason geometrical and inertial nonlinearities become increasingly important. Often these effects are analysed using a nonlinear truncated expansion in undamped fixed base mode shapes of a blade, modelling geometrical and inertial nonlinear couplings in the fundamental flap and edge direction. The purpose of this article is to examine the applicability of such a reduced-degree-of-freedom model in predicting the nonlinear response and stability of a blade by comparison to a full model based on a nonlinear co-rotating FE formulation. By use of the reduced-degree-of-freedom model it is shown that under strong resonance excitation of the fundamental flap or edge modes, significant energy is transferred to higher modes due to parametric or nonlinear coupling terms, which influence the response and stability conditions. It is demonstrated that the response predicted by such models in some cases becomes instable or chaotic. However, as a consequence of the energy flow the stability is increased and the tendency of chaotic vibrations is reduced as the number of modes are increased. The FE model representing the case of infinitely many included modes, is shown to predict stable and ordered response for all considered parameters. Further, the analysis shows that the reduced-degree-of-freedom model of relatively low order overestimates the response near resonance peaks, which is a consequence of the small number of included modes. The qualitative erratic response and stability prediction of the reduced order models take place at frequencies slightly above normal operation. However, for normal operation of the wind turbine without resonance excitation 4 modes in the reduced-degree-of-freedom model perform acceptable.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers A
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• v.36 no.12
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• pp.1489-1495
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• 2012

In this study, we perform the structural analysis of a floating offshore wind turbine tower by considering the dynamic response of the floating platform. A multibody system consisting of three blades, a hub, a nacelle, the platform, and the tower is used to model the floating wind turbine. The blades and the tower are modeled as flexible bodies using three-dimensional beam elements. The aerodynamic force on the blades is calculated by the Blade Element Momentum (BEM) theory with hub rotation. The hydrostatic, hydrodynamic, and mooring forces are considered for the platform. The structural dynamic responses of the tower are simulated by numerically solving the equations of motion. From the simulation results, the time history of the internal forces at the nodes, such as the bending moment and stress, are obtained. In conclusion, the internal forces are compared with those obtained from static analysis to assess the effects of wave loads on the structural stability of the tower.