Double - stage H-Darrieus wind turbine - rotor aerodynamics

H-Darrieus wind turbines, due to their simple design and relatively low manufacturing costs have recently received much attention particularly for standalone applications. However start-up issues associated with their operation restricted their operation in areas of low average wind speed and encourages engineers to develop novel design. Several design proposed in this way but in most cases design came up with complex sensing mechanisms and mechanical actuators or high cost manufacturing parts. A recent rotor design called double Darrieus rotor proposed as a German patent case bridged these complexities appropriately. The aim of present study is to investigate this innovative design from aerodynamic point of view by means of validated CFD techniques. A flow-driven simulation setup based on 6DOF calculations employed in order to study rotor operation from stand still until peak performance obtained. Results from these precise modeling reveal the superiority of the proposed double-stage design in compare with the original H-Darrieus rotors in terms of start-up behavior and optimum performance

Fracture Behavior of Two Biopolymers Containing Notches: Effects of Notch Tip Plasticity

ABSTRACT: This paper analyzes the notch effect on the fracture behavior of two biomaterials (a brittle bone cement and a ductile dental material) under mode I loading. U-notched Brazilian disk (UNBD) specimens of both materials were tested under remote compression, determining the corresponding fracture loads and load-displacement curves. Additionally, cracked rectangular and semicircular bend (SCB) specimens were tested under symmetric three-point bending in order to determine the fracture toughness of the two materials. Then, fracture loads were derived theoretically by applying the maximum tangential stress (MTS) and the mean stress (MS) criteria. Due to the brittle linear elastic behavior of the bone cement material, the MTS and MS criteria were directly applied to this material; however, given the significant nonlinear behavior of the dental material, the two fracture criteria were combined with the Equivalent Material Concept (EMC) for the fracture analyses of the dental material specimens. The results reveal a very good accuracy of both the MTS and the MS criteria for the fracture analysis of bone cement notched specimens. In the case of the dental material, very good results are also obtained when combining the MTS and the MS criteria with the EMC. The proposed approach can be useful for the fracture analysis of a wide range of biopolymers, from brittle to ductile behavior

Critical Load Prediction in Notched E/Glass-Epoxy-Laminated Composites Using the Virtual Isotropic Material Concept Combined with the Average Strain Energy Density Criterion

ABSTRACT: This paper attempts to validate the application of the Virtual Isotropic Material Concept (VIMC) in combination with the average strain energy density (ASED) criterion to predict the critical load in notched laminated composites. This methodology was applied to E/glass-epoxy-laminated composites containing U-notches. For this purpose, a series of fracture test data recently published in the literature on specimens with different notch tip radii, lay-up configurations, and a number of plies were employed. It was shown that the VIMC-ASED combined approach provided satisfactory predictions of the last-ply failure (LPF) loads (i.e., critical loads)

Tensile-Tearing Fracture Analysis of U-Notched Spruce Samples

ABSTRACT: Spruce wood (Picea Mariana) is a highly orthotropic material whose fracture behavior in the presence of U-shaped notches and under combined tensile-tearing loading (so-called mixedmode I/III loading) is analyzed in this work. Thus, several tests are carried out on U-notched samples with different notch tip radii (1 mm, 2 mm, and 4 mm) under various combinations of loading modes I and III (pure mode I, pure mode III, and three mixed-mode I/III loadings), from which both the experimental fracture loads and the fracture angles of the specimens are obtained. Because of the linear elastic behavior of the spruce wood, the point stress (PS) and mean stress (MS) methods, both being stress-based criteria, are used in combination with the Virtual Isotropic Material Concept (VIMC) for predicting the fracture loads and the fracture angles. By employing the VIMC, the spruce wood as an orthotropic material is modeled as a homogeneous and isotropic material with linear elastic behavior. The stress components required for calculating the experimental values of notch stress intensity factors are obtained by finite element (FE) analyses of the test configuration using commercial FE software from the fracture loads obtained experimentally. The discrepancies between the experimental and theoretical results of the critical notch stress intensity factors are obtained between -12.1% and -15% for the PS criterion and between -5.9% and -14.6% for the MS criterion, respectively. The discrepancies related to fracture initiation angle range from -1.0% to +12.1% for the PS criterion and from +1.5% to +12.2% for the MS criterion, respectively. Thus, both the PS and MS models have good accuracy when compared with the experimental data. It is also found that both failure criteria underestimate the fracture resistance of spruce wood under mixedmode I/III loading