Strain gauge measurements on a full scale tidal turbine blade

Lake, Thomas; Hughes, J F; Togneri, Michael; Williams, Alison; Jeffcoate, Penelope; Starzmann, Ralf; Kaufmann, Nicholas; Masters, Ian

doi:10.1016/j.renene.2021.01.137

Cited by 9 publications

(3 citation statements)

References 19 publications

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“…A slow-speed shaft, planetary gearbox and asynchronous generator complete the drive train; the system is cooled by ambient water. The fullscale turbine was extensively tested on Sustainable Marine's first-generation surface floating PLAT-I platform and showed good agreement with semi-empirical power and thrust predictions using BEM (Starzmann et al 2018;Lake et al 2021).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 93%

Tidal stream to mainstream: mechanical testing of composite tidal stream blades to de-risk operational design life

Glennon

Finnegan

Kaufmann

et al. 2022

J. Ocean Eng. Mar. Energy

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Tidal energy has seen a surge of interest in recent years with several companies developing technology to harness the power of the world’s oceans where the operational capacity in Europe was over 11 MW in 2020. One such developer is the partnership of SCHOTTEL Hydro (Germany) and Sustainable Marine (UK) who have developed a scalable multi-turbine device equipped with 70 kW turbines and capable of operating in arrays at sites around the world. The technology to harness tidal energy is still at a relatively early stage of development; hence, de-risking of component parts plays a vital role on the road to commercialisation. Despite this, the number of tidal energy blades undergoing test programmes remains small. Two different rotor diameters have been developed for the aforementioned device such that it can be optimised for sites of varying potential. In this paper, a blade from each of the 4.0 m and 6.3 m diameter devices was tested for their responses in natural frequency, static loading and fatigue loading under test standards IEC 62600-3:2020 and DNVGL-ST-0164. Testing saw the survival of a blade in fatigue at a lifetime-equivalent load and the generation of natural frequency, strain and displacement results for both blades. Data generated from the testing as a whole will contribute to the modelling and validation of future tidal blades.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 93%

Tidal stream to mainstream: mechanical testing of composite tidal stream blades to de-risk operational design life

Glennon

Finnegan

Kaufmann

et al. 2022

J. Ocean Eng. Mar. Energy

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“…The on-board instruments (ADV and ECM) have synchronised datasets with data acquisition systems, with the SURFTEC monitoring system and the PLAT-I SCADA respectively; the remote seabed ADP was independently deployed. Further information regarding the SME PLAT-I device and SURFTEC instrumentation is available [6]- [9].…”

Section: A Scenariomentioning

confidence: 99%

comparison of platform and sea-bed mounted flow measurement instrumentation for SME PLAT-I

et al. 2022

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Tidal resource assessment for the characterisation of turbine performance or Annual Energy Prediction currently uses the method of bins as recommended by international standards. An alternative method is proposed in this paper and applied to the Sustainable Marine Energy PLAT-I deployment in Connel Sound, Scotland. This method may be suitable for tidal turbines which operate from the surface. Three instrumentation types are used in this work, a bed-mounted Acoustic Doppler Profiler (ADP), and platform-mounted Acoustic Doppler Velocimeter (ADV) and Electromagnetic Current Meter (ECM). By comparing the resource characteristics from these three sources, a comparison of their velocity magnitudes and turbulence characteristics is made, demonstrating the difference between methodologies. It was found that the ADP evaluated using the method of bins produced a more conservative velocity distribution, in comparison to the ADV and ECM. Consequently, a representative AEP showed a difference of 3.8kWh (50% of ADP total) for the month of data collected. When comparing the Turbulence Intensity between devices, the ADP and ECM had similar metrics whilst the ADV had up to 14% higher values. The significance of these differences requires further work comparing them to the SME PLAT-I turbines power output to ascertain which best represents the onset flow experienced by the turbine and if there is a correlation between power performance and turbulence intensity.

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“…To date, researchers have characterized open-source blade designs at small scale (less than 1 m diameter) in flumes and towing tanks [5][6][7][8][9][10], and industry has deployed blades with proprietary composite layups and designs. Some of these have included strain data collection, but without an open-source blade design, these data cannot easily be used for model verification by others [11]. Additionally, manufacturing methods and materials used at a small scale are not easily translated to larger-scale devices, and the mechanics of the larger blades are likely to greatly differ.…”

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confidence: 99%

Design, Manufacture and Testing of an Open-Source Benchmark Composite Hydrokinetic Turbine Blade

González-Montijo,

Murray,

Beach

et al. 2023

Proc. EWTEC

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In a trend towards clean energy alternatives, recent years have seen great strides in the marine energy space. This has resulted in a pressing need for the design, development, and validation of novel energy harvesting technologies such as hydrokinetic devices, which capture kinetic energy from waves, tides, and currents. However, these devices span numerous concepts and designs that often lack solid benchmark research that can be freely referenced. This work focuses on the design process of an open-source composite hydrokinetic turbine blade for a three-bladed marine turbine rotor assembly with a diameter of 2.5 m. The proposed blade consists of two structural composite skins that are bonded with an adhesive and filled with a foam core. This study will explore and contrast the efficiency and resolution of low-fidelity rapid design methodologies and comprehensive high-fidelity approaches for the blade design, modeling, and analysis efforts, a key objective in this research. Blade hydrodynamic loads were modeled and applied to finite-element blade models to study deformations and potential failure. Ongoing efforts will result in blade manufacture and structural testing at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory. In future work, multiple blades will be deployed at the Living Bridge site at the University of New Hampshire and will be compared to rigid aluminum blades of the same geometry, developed by Sandia National Laboratories. Ultimately, this research will lay foundational groundwork for researchers and manufacturers, establishing a baseline composite blade design that will serve as a benchmark in the development of future hydrokinetic turbine blades.

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Strain gauge measurements on a full scale tidal turbine blade

Cited by 9 publications

References 19 publications

Tidal stream to mainstream: mechanical testing of composite tidal stream blades to de-risk operational design life

Tidal stream to mainstream: mechanical testing of composite tidal stream blades to de-risk operational design life

comparison of platform and sea-bed mounted flow measurement instrumentation for SME PLAT-I

Design, Manufacture and Testing of an Open-Source Benchmark Composite Hydrokinetic Turbine Blade

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