Damage measurements on the NWTC direct-drive, Variable-Speed Test Bed

The NWTC (National Wind Technology Center) Variable-Speed Test Bed turbine is a three-bladed, 10-meter, downwind machine that can be run in either fixed-speed or variable-speed mode. In the variable-speed mode, the generator torque is regulated, using a discrete-stepped load bank to maximize the turbine`s power coefficient. At rated power, a second control loop that uses blade pitch to maintain rotor speed essentially as before, i.e., using the load bank to maintain either generator power or (optionally) generator torque. In this paper, the authors will use this turbine to study the effect of variable-speed operation on blade damage. Using time-series data obtained from blade flap and edge strain gauges, the load spectrum for the turbine is developed using rainflow counting techniques. Miner`s rule is then used to determine the damage rates for variable-speed and fixed-speed operation. The results illustrate that the controller algorithm used with this turbine introduces relatively large load cycles into the blade that significantly reduce its service lifetime, while power production is only marginally increased

Application of measured loads to wind turbine fatigue and reliability analysis

Cyclic loadings produce progressive damage that can ultimately result in wind turbine structural failure. There are many issues that must be dealt with in turning load measurements into estimates of component fatigue life. This paper deals with how the measured loads can be analyzed and processed to meet the needs of both fatigue life calculations and reliability estimates. It is recommended that moments of the distribution of rainflow-range load amplitudes be calculated and used to characterize the fatigue loading. These moments reflect successively more detailed physical characteristics of the loading (mean, spread, tail behavior). Moments can be calculated from data samples and functional forms can be fitted to wind conditions, such as wind speed and turbulence intensity, with standard recession techniques. Distributions of load amplitudes that accurately reflect the damaging potential of the loadings can be estimated from the moments at any, wind condition of interest. Fatigue life can then be calculated from the estimated load distributions, and the overall, long-term, or design spectrum can be generated for any particular wind-speed distribution. Characterizing the uncertainty in the distribution of cyclic loads is facilitated by using a small set of descriptive statistics for which uncertainties can be estimated. The effects of loading parameter uncertainty can then be transferred to the fatigue life estimate and compared with other uncertainties, such as material durability