Design and veri?cation of airfoil families for large-size wind turbine blades?

For the design of wind turbine blades, the use of a family of specially tailored airfoils is particularly important. The dedicated airfoils can dramatically improve the capability of capturing wind power, reduce the structural weight to save the cost of manufacturing and transportation, and lower the inertial loads as well as the loads due to gust. An overview of the world-wide wind turbine airfoil families developed since 1990’s is presented, such as the S series, the DU series, the Ris? series, and the FFA series. The design and wind-tunnel tests of the Northwestern Polytechnical University (NPU) airfoil family for megawatt-size wind turbines, called the NPU-WA series, are summarized. All tests for the NPU-WA series are carried out in the NF-3 low-speed wind-tunnel with a two-dimensional (2D) test section of 1.6 m?0.8 m and at the Reynolds number ranging from 1.6?106 to 5?106 . The research activities for further improving the NPU-WA airfoils towards lower roughness sensitivity are also reviewed. The development of the new NPU-WA series dedicated for multi-megawatt wind turbines is discussed.     

Status of large scale wind turbine technology development abroad?

To facilitate the large scale (multi-megawatt) wind turbine development in China, the foreign e?orts and achievements in the area are reviewed and summarized. Not only the popular horizontal axis wind turbines on-land but also the o?shore wind turbines, vertical axis wind turbines, airborne wind turbines, and shroud wind turbines are discussed. The purpose of this review is to provide a comprehensive comment and assessment about the basic work principle, economic aspects, and environmental impacts of turbines.     

O?shore ?oating wind turbine and its dynamic problems?

Green energy sources and ocean wind power are plentiful in deep sea. More and more o?shore wind power plants are constructed in the deep water over hundred meters below the surface. While o?shore ?oating wind turbine system is working, wind turbine, ?oating foundation, and mooring system a?ect each other with wind, waves, and currents acting on them. Various o?shore ?oating wind turbine systems and the encoun-tered environmental loads are brie?y reviewed and discussed. It is di?cult and crucial to comprehensively analyze the aerodynamic-hydrodynamic-service system-structure un-der the coupling e?ect of o?shore ?oating wind turbine system. The environmental ?ow ?eld, structure scale, and rational applications of theories and approaches should be well considered in advance.     

Aeroelastic analysis of large horizontal wind turbine baldes?

A nonlinear aeroelastic analysis method for large horizontal wind turbines is described. A vortex wake method and a nonlinear ?nite element method (FEM) are coupled in the approach. The vortex wake method is used to predict wind turbine aero-dynamic loads of a wind turbine, and a three-dimensional (3D) shell model is built for the rotor. Average aerodynamic forces along the azimuth are applied to the structural model, and the nonlinear static aeroelastic behaviors are computed. The wind rotor modes are obtained at the static aeroelastic status by linearizing the coupled equations. The static aeroelastic performance and dynamic aeroelastic responses are calculated for the NH1500 wind turbine. The results show that structural geometrical nonlinearities signi?cantly reduce displacements and vibration amplitudes of the wind turbine blades. Therefore, structural geometrical nonlinearities cannot be neglected both in the static aeroelastic analysis and dynamic aeroelastic analysis.     

Application of bamboo laminates in large-scale wind turbine blade design?

From the viewpoint of material and structure in the design of bamboo blades of large-scale wind turbine, a series of mechanical property tests of bamboo laminates as the major enhancement materials for blades are presented. The basic mechanical characteristics needed in the design of bamboo blades are brie?y introduced. Based on these data, the aerodynamic-structural integrated design of a 1.5 MW wind turbine bamboo blade relying on a conventional platform of upwind, variable speed, variable pitch, and doubly-fed generator is carried out. The process of the structural layer design of bamboo blades is documented in detail. The structural strength and fatigue life of the designed wind turbine blades are certified. The technical issues raised from the design are discussed. Key problems and direction of the future study are also summarized.     

Investigation of horizontal-axis wind turbine (HAWT) blade three-dimensional rotational e?ect based on ?eld experiments?

Field experiments are performed on a two-bladed 33 kW horizontal-axis wind turbine (HAWT). The pressures are measured with 191 pressure sensors positioned around the surfaces of seven spanwise section airfoils on one of the two blades. Three-dimensional (3D) and two-dimensional (2D) numerical simulations are performed, respectively, on the rotor and the seven airfoils of the blade. The results are compared with the experimental results of the pressure distribution on the seven airfoils and the lift coe?cients. The 3D rotational e?ect on the blade aerodynamic characteristics is then studied with a numerical approach. Finally, some conclusions are drawn as follows. From the tip to the root of the blade, the experimental di?erential pressure of the blade section airfoil increases at ?rst and then decreases gradually. The calculated 3D result of the pressure distribution on the blade surface is closer to that of the experiment than the 2D result. The 3D rotational e?ect has a signi?cant impact on the blade surface ?ow and the aerodynamic load, leading to an increase of the di?erential pressure on the airfoils and their lift coe?cient than that with the 2D one because of the stall delay. The in?uence of the 3D rotational e?ect on the wind turbine blade especially takes place on the sections with ?ow separation.     

Progresses in application of computational ?uid dynamic methods to large scale wind turbine aerodynamics?

The computational ?uid dynamics (CFD) methods are applied to aerody-namic problems for large scale wind turbines. The progresses including the aerodynamic analyses of wind turbine pro?les, numerical ?ow simulation of wind turbine blades, evalu-ation of aerodynamic performance, and multi-objective blade optimization are discussed. Based on the CFD methods, signi?cant improvements are obtained to predict two/three-dimensional aerodynamic characteristics of wind turbine airfoils and blades, and the vorti-cal structure in their wake ?ows is accurately captured. Combining with a multi-objective genetic algorithm, a 1.5 MW NH-1500 optimized blade is designed with high e?ciency in wind energy conversion.     

Research status and trend of wind turbine aerodynamic noise?

The main components of the wind turbine aerodynamic noise are introduced. A detailed review is given on the theoretical prediction, experimental measurement, and numerical simulation methods of wind turbine noise, with speci?c attention to appli-cations. Furthermore, suppression techniques of wind turbine aerodynamic noise are discussed. The perspective of future research on the wind turbine aerodynamic noise is presented.     

Recent progresses in studies on wave-current loads on foundation structure with piles and slab?

The foundation structure with piles and slab is widely used in o?shore wind farm construction in shallow water. Experimental studies on the hydrodynamic loads acting on the piles and slab under irregular waves and currents are summarized with discussion on the e?ects of pile grouping on the wave forces and wave impact loads on the slab locating near the free surface. By applying the theoretical solution of the wave di?racted by the slab and using the Morison equation to evaluate the wave force on the piles, the e?ects of the slab on the wave forces acting on the piles are analyzed. Based on the Reynolds-averaged Navier-Stokes (RANS) equations and the volume of ?uid (VOF) method, a numerical wave basin is developed to simulate the wave-structure interaction. The computed maximum wave force on the foundation structure with piles and slab agrees well with the measured data. The violent deformation, breaking, and run-up of the wave around the structure are presented and discussed. Further work on the turbulent ?ow structures and large deformation of the free surface due to interaction of the waves and foundation structures of o?shore wind farms needs more e?cient approaches for evaluating hydrodynamic loads under the e?ects of nonlinear waves and currents.     

On the rigidity of solitary waves for the focusing mass-critical NLS in dimensions d?2

For the focusing mass-critical NLS iut + △u =-|u| 4/d u,it is conjectured that the only global nonscattering solution with ground state mass must be a solitary wave up to symmetries of the equation.In this paper,we settle the conjecture for Hx1 initial data in dimensions d = 2,3 with spherical symmetry and d 4 with certain splitting-spherically symmetric initial data.