Experimental analysis of the dynamic inflow effect due to coherent gusts

Abstract

Abstract. The dynamic inflow effect describes the unsteady aerodynamic response to fast changes in rotor loading, due to the inertia of the wake. For pitch actuation and fast rotor speed changes this effect leads to load overshoots. The effect is suspected to be also relevant for gust situations, however this was never shown. The objective of the paper is to proove the dynamic inflow effect due to gusts and compare dynamic inflow engineering models to corresponding measurements. A 1.8 m diameter model turbine is used in the large wind tunnel of ForWind – University of Oldenburg with an active grid to impress rotor uniform gusts on the flow. The campaign features load and velocity measurements of the axial flow in the rotor plane. The unsteady dynamic inflow effect is investigated by comparing two experimental cases. Firstly, a dynamic measurement during a gust situation is performed. Secondly, quasi-steady loads and axial velocities are interpolated from a steady characterisation experiment according to the gust wind speed. By comparing both cases, the influence attributed to the dynamic inflow effect is isolated. Further comparisons to a typical Blade Element Momentum code and a higher fidelity Free VortexWake Model are performed. Based on analytical considerations an improvemed formulation of the Øye dynamic inflow model is proposed. The experiment shows a dynamic inflow effect due to gusts in the loads and axial velocity measurements. It leads to a reduction in load and axial velocity amplitudes and consequently also lower fatigue loading. The higher fidelity model shows a similar impact of the dynamic inflow effect. In contrast, the commonly used Øye engineering model in the BEM code predicts an increase in load amplitude and thus higher fatigue loads. The improved Øye engineering model however catches the observed dynamic inflow effect due to gusts in accordance to the experiment and FVWM simulations. An amplification of induced velocities, seen in the experiment and FVWM simulation, causes the reduced load amplitudes. Therefore, classic dynamic inflow models, which filter the induced velocity, cannot predict the effect. The proposed improvement to additionally consider the wake velocity for the filter of the dynamic inflow engineering model, proves to be a straight forward but also effective modification. In conclusion, these new experimental findings on dynamic inflow due to gusts and improvements to the Øye model enable improvements in wind turbine design by catching the related lower fatigue loads.

A comparison of dynamic inflow models for the Blade Element Momentum method

“…Therefore, these aspects shall be given priority in future works. The next step for this dynamic inflow modelling activity will be the implementation of the recently proposed Øye model modification that improves the modelling of wind gust-driven dynamic wake effects (Berger et al, 2022).…”

“…A slight modification to the original formulation that improves the modelling of the induction response to coherent wind gusts was recently proposed by Berger et al (2022). Their suggestion is to apply the slow filter in eq.…”

Design and evaluation of rotor blades for fluid structure interaction studies in wind tunnel conditions

“…In that case, the amplitude of the simulated flapwise bending moment variation is greater than measured. This is at least partly explained by the fact that aeroelastic simulation tools overestimate load overshoots in such dynamic inflow conditions [13].…”