• Wind and Structures
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• v.15 no.4
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• pp.285-299
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• 2012

This paper describes the development and calibration of a structural monitoring system installed in a 80 meters high steel wind tower supporting a 2.1 MW turbine Wind Class III IEC2a erected in the central part of Portugal. The several signals are measured at four different levels and include accelerations, strains on the tower wall and inside the connection bolts, inclinations and temperature. In order to correlate measurements with the wind velocity and direction and with the turbine operational parameters the corresponding signals are obtained directly from the turbine own monitoring system and are incorporated in the developed system. Results from the system calibration, the structural identification and the initial period of data acquisition are presented in this paper.

• Wind and Structures
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• v.27 no.5
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• pp.337-345
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• 2018

Tall buildings are subjected to wind loading that can cause excessive wind-induced vibration. This vibration can affect the activities of the inhabitants of a building and in some cases fear for safety. Many codes and standards propose the use of curves of perception of acceleration that can be used to verify the serviceability limit state; however, these curves of perception do not take into account the uncertainty in wind-climate, structural properties, perception of motion and maximum response. The main objective of this study is to develop an empirical expression that includes these uncertainties in order to be incorporated into a simple procedure to evaluate the wind-induced acceleration in tall buildings. The use of the proposed procedure is described with a numerical example of a tall building located in Mexico.

• Steel and Composite Structures
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• v.24 no.2
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• pp.227-237
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• 2017

This paper presents optimization of a long-span portal steel frame under dynamic wind loads using a surrogate-assisted evolutionary algorithm. Long-span portal steel frames are often used in low-rise industrial and commercial buildings. The structure needs be able to resist the wind loads, and at the same time it should be as light as possible in order to be cost-effective. In this work, numerical model of a portal steel frame is constructed using structural analysis program (SAP2000), with the web-heights at five locations of I-sections of the columns and rafters as the decision variables. In order to evaluate the performance of a given design under dynamic wind loading, the equivalent static wind load (ESWL) is obtained from a database of wind pressures measured in wind tunnel tests. A modified formulation of the problem compared to the one available in the literature is also presented, considering additional design constraints for practicality. Evolutionary algorithms (EA) are often used to solve such non-linear, black-box problems, but when each design evaluation is computationally expensive (e.g., in this case a SAP2000 simulation), the time taken for optimization using EAs becomes untenable. To overcome this challenge, we employ a surrogate-assisted evolutionary algorithm (SAEA) to expedite the convergence towards the optimum design. The presented SAEA uses multiple spatially distributed surrogate models to approximate the simulations more accurately in lieu of commonly used single global surrogate models. Through rigorous numerical experiments, improvements in results and time savings obtained using SAEA over EA are demonstrated.

• International Journal of Aeronautical and Space Sciences
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• v.18 no.1
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• pp.17-27
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• 2017

The treatment of rotor wake has been a critical issue in the field of the rotor aerodynamics. This paper presents a new free wake model for the unsteady analysis for a wind turbine. A blade-wake-tower interaction is major source of unsteady aerodynamic loading and noise on the wind turbine. However, this interaction can not be considered in conventional free wake model. Thus, the free wake model named Finite Vortex Element (FVE hereafter) was devised in order to consider the interaction effects. In this new free wake model, the wake-tower interaction was described by dividing one vortex filament into two vortex filaments, when the vortex filament collided with a tower. Each divided vortex filaments were remodeled to make vortex ring and horseshoe vortex to satisfy Kelvin's circulation theorem and Helmholtz's vortex theorem. This model was then used to predict aerodynamic load and wake geometry for the horizontal axis wind turbine. The results of the FVE model were compared with those of the conventional free wake model and the experimental results of SNU wind tunnel test and NREL wind tunnel test under various inflow velocity and yaw condition. The result of the FVE model showed better correlation with experimental data. It was certain that the tower interaction has a strong effect on the unsteady aerodynamic load of blades. Thus, the tower interaction needs to be taken into account for the unsteady load prediction. As a result, this research shows a potential of the FVE for an efficient and versatile numerical tool for unsteady loading analysis of a wind turbine.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Propulsion Engineers Conference
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• 2001.04a
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• pp.91-94
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• 2001

A structural test of the wind turbine rotor blade must be required to evaluate the uncertainty in design assessment due to use of material, design concepts, production processes and so on, and the possible impact on the structural integrity. In the full-scale static strength test, the measuring parameters are strain, displacements, loads, weight and the center of gravity. There are test equipments, measuring sensors, a test rig and fixtures to obtain measuring parameters. In order to simulate the aerodynamics load, the three-point loading method instead of the one-point loading method is applied. There is slightly some difference between the measured results and the predicted results with the reference fiber volume fraction of 60%. However, the agreement between the measured results and the predicted results with the actual fiber volume fraction of 52.5% is good. Even though a slightly non-linearity from 80% loading to 100% loading, a linear static solution is sufficient for the design purpose as the amount of the non-linearity is relatively small. Comparison between measured and predicted strain results at the maximum thickness positions of the blade profile for 0.236R(5.56m), 0.493R(11.59m) and 0.574R(13.43m), under 20%, 40%, 60%, 80% and 100% loadings for the upper part of the blade. The predicted values are in good agreement with the measured values.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers A
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• v.36 no.3
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• pp.297-304
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• 2012

For the assessment of the performance of a wind-turbine blade, a simulated loading test may be required. In this study, the blade behavior was investigated through numerical analysis using a dual-axis loading test, closely simulating the real operation conditions. The blade structure for the 100-kW-class wind-turbine system was modeled using the finite element (FE) program ANSYS. The failure criteria and buckling analysis under dual-axis loading were examined. The failure analysis, including fiber failure and inter-fiber failure, was performed with Puck's failure criterion. As the dual-axis load ratio increases, the relatively increased stress occurs at the trailing edge and skin surface 3300-3600 mm away from the root. Furthermore, it is revealed that increasing the dual-axis load ratio makes the location that is weakest against buckling move toward the root part. Thus, it is seen that the dual-axis load test may be an essential requirement for the verification of blade performance.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers A
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• v.38 no.1
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• pp.1-9
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• 2014

Structural loading on a wind turbine is due to cyclic loads acting on the blades under turbulence and periodic wind field. The structural loading generates fatigue damage and fatigue failure of the wind turbine. The individual pitch control(IPC) is an efficient control method for reducing structural loading. In this paper, we present an IPC design method using Decentralized LQR(DLQR) and Disturbance accommodating control(DAC). DLQR is used for regulating rotor speed and DAC is used for canceling out disturbances. The performance of the proposed IPC is compared with CPC, which was designed with a gain-scheduled PI controller. We confirm the effect of fatigue load reduction with the use of damage equivalent load(DEL).

• Wind and Structures
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• v.30 no.3
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• pp.261-273
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• 2020

This paper deals with the design, wind tunnel testing, and performance analysis of small wind turbines targeting low-power applications. Three different small-size blade designs in terms of size, shape, and twisting angle are considered and tested. We conduct wind tunnel tests while measuring the angular speed of the rotating blades, the generated voltage, and the current under varying resistive loading and air flow conditions. An electromechanical model is also used to predict the measured voltage and power and verify their consistency and repeatability. The measurements are found in qualitative agreement with those reported in previously-published experimental works. We present a novel methodology to estimate the mechanical torque applied to the wind turbine without the deployment of a torque measuring device. This method can be used to determine the power coefficient at a given air speed, which constitutes an important performance indicator of wind turbines. The wind tunnel tests revealed the capability of the developed wind turbines to deliver more than 1225 mW when subject to an air flow with a speed of 7 m/s. The power coefficient is found ranging between 26% and 32%. This demonstrates the aerodynamic capability of the designed blades to extract power from the wind.

• Wind and Structures
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• v.22 no.1
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• pp.43-63
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• 2016

In conventional buffeting theory, it is assumed that the aerostatic coefficients along a bridge deck follow the strip assumption. The validity of this assumption is suspect for a cable-stayed bridge in the construction stages, due to the effect of significant aerodynamic interference from the pylon. This situation may be aggravated in skew winds. Therefore, the most adverse buffeting usually occurs when the wind is not normal to bridge axis, which indicates the invalidity of the traditional "cosine rule". In order to refine the studies of static wind load on the deck of cable-stayed bridge under skew wind during its most adverse construction stage, a full bridge 'aero-stiff' model technique was used to identify the aerostatic loads on each deck segment, in smooth oncoming flow, with various yaw angles. The results show that the shelter effect of the pylon may not be ignored, and can amplify the aerostatic loading on the bridge deck under skew winds ($10^{\circ}-30^{\circ}$) with certain wind attack angles, and consequently results in the "cosine rule" becoming invalid for the buffeting estimation of cable-stayed bridge during erection for these wind directions.

• 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.