Offshore monopile in the southern North Sea: Part I, calibrated input sea state

Safe, reliable access is an essential precondition for the successful maintenance of offshore wind farms. Access from vessels to wind turbines depends on the severity of the sea state in the vicinity of the turbine support structure. This paper presents a validation of a numerical boundary condition developed to reproduce the seasonal sea state at Teesside Offshore Wind Farm, off the coast of the UK. The boundary condition, called customSpectrum, was derived from wave energy spectra obtained by analysis of existing field measurements of wave free-surface displacement at the wind farm site and implemented in OpenFoam, the open-source computational fluid dynamics library. OpenFoam was then used to simulate typical spring, summer, autumn and winter sea states as uni-directional waves. Predicted surface elevations and significant wave heights were found to be in agreement with in situ buoy data, thus validating the OpenFoam model. Satisfactory agreement was achieved between analytical and numerically predicted spectral density functions for the horizontal and vertical water particle velocity components. It was found that the wave activity at Teesside is uni-modal in spring and autumn, and bi-modal in summer and winter. Extending the procedure to multi-directional waves in crossing seas is recommended

The use of the asymptotic accelertion potential method for horizontal axis windturbine rotor aerodynamics

The acceleration potential method is introduced as a powerful approach to develop computational tools for aerodynamic calculations on horizontal axis windturbine rotors. The basic equations are given as well as a general analytical first-order asymptotic solution. Three computer codes are described in some detail as well as their application. In its simplest appearance the method is equivalent to a lifting line method with a wake relaxing in axial direction. The code in which this model is implemented, PREDICHAT, has been used extensively for calculations of performance and (stationary) blade loads. A more elaborated code, VIAX, has been developed specifically for the calculation of axial velocities in the near wake. Finally an approach is presented for the computation of loads under dynamic inflow conditions. Some results of the various codes are presented

The science of making more torque from wind : diffuser experiments and theory revisited

History of the development of DAWT's stretches a period of more than 50 years. So far without any commercial success. In the initial years of development the conversion process was not understood very well. Experimentalists strived at maximising the pressure drop over the rotor disk, but lacked theoretical insight into optimising the performance. Increasing the diffuser area as well as the negative back pressure at the diffuser exit was found profitable in the experiments. Claims were made that performance augmentations with a factor of 4 or more were feasible, but these claims were not confirmed experimentally. With a simple momentum theory, developed along the lines of momentum theory for bare windturbines, it was shown that power augmentation is proportional to the mass flow increase generated at the nozzle of the DAWT. Such mass flow augmentation can be achieved through two basic principles: increase in the diffuser exit ratio and/or by decreasing the negative back pressure at the exit. The theory predicts an optimal pressure drop of 8/9 equal to the pressure drop for bare windturbines independent from the mass flow augmentation obtained. The maximum amount of energy that can be extracted per unit of volume with a DAWT is also the same as for a bare wind turbine. Performance predictions with this theory show good agreement with a CFD calculation. Comparison with a large amount of experimental data found in literature shows that in practice power augmentation factors above 3 have never been achieved. Referred to rotor power coefficients values of C P,rotort= 2.5 might be achievable according to theory, but to the cost of fairly large diffuser area ratio's, typically values of ß>4.5. © 2007 IOP Publishing Ltd

Preconditioning the Advection-Diffusion Equation: the Green's Function Approach

We look at the relationship between efficient preconditioners (i.e., good approximations to the discrete inverse operator) and the generalized inverse for the (continuous) advection-diffusion operator -- the Green's function. We find that the continuous Green's function exhibits two important properties -- directionality and rapid downwind decay -- which are preserved by the discrete (grid) Green's functions, if and only if the discretization used produces non-oscillatory solutions. In particular, the downwind decay ensures the locality of the grid Green's functions. Hence, a finite element formulation which produces a good solution will typically use a coefficient matrix with almost lower triangular structure under a "with-the-flow" numbering of the variables. It follows that the block Gauss-Seidel matrix is a first candidate for a preconditioner to use with an iterative solver of Krylov subspace type

Reliability & availability of wind turbine electrical & electronic components

Recent analysis of European onshore wind turbine reliability data has shown that whilst wind turbine mechanical subassemblies tend to have relatively low failure rates but long downtimes, electrical and electronic subassemblies have relatively high failure rates and short downtimes. For onshore wind turbines the higher failure rates of electrical and electronic subassemblies can be managed by a maintenance regime that provides regular and frequent attendance to wind turbine sites. This regime will be costly or impossible to sustain in more remote onshore or offshore wind farm sites. This paper gathers data supporting the contention that electrical and electronic subassembly failure modes are a significant contributor to wind turbine unreliability, identifying some of their root causes, showing how they will play a more significant part in the availability of offshore wind turbines. The paper concludes by showing how more can be learnt to eliminate or mitigate some of these electrical and electronic subassembly failure modes

Towards improving the aerodynamic performance of a ducted wind turbine: A numerical study

This paper aims to study the aerodynamic performance of ducted wind turbines (DWT) using inviscid and viscous flow calculations by accounting for the mutual interaction between the duct and the rotor. Two generalized duct cross section geometries are considered while the rotor is modelled as an actuator disc with constant thrust coefficient. The analysis shows the opportunity to significantly increase the overall aerodynamic performance of the DWT by a correct choice of the optimal rotor loading for a given duct geometry. Present results clearly indicate that the increased duct cross section camber leads to an improved performance for a DWT. Finally, some insights on the changes occurring to the performance coefficients are obtained through a detailed flow analysis