Subscale Testing of Horizontal-Axis Wind Turbines

Ananda, Gavin K.; Bansal, Suraj; Selig, Michael S.

doi:10.2514/6.2017-4216

Cited by 3 publications

(2 citation statements)

References 11 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…As a part of the SUMR project, there are currently on-going efforts to develop wind tunnel testing capability in the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign for subscale testing of highly coned rotors. 24 One of the main purposes of these tests is to validate BladeMorph and other BEMT based computational codes for highly coned rotors such 18 American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics as AeroDyn v14. Due to practical limitations, a perfect scaling of the extreme-scale SUMR rotors is not possible for testing in the UIUC wind tunnel.…”

Section: Future Workmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…However, since these tests are being conducted to validate BladeMorph and other computational codes, an entirely new rotor will be designed to be tested at low Reynolds number in the UIUC open-return 2.8 x 4 ft subsonic wind tunnnel. 24 Following validation, BladeMorph will be subsequently integrated with PROPID via a graphical user interface designed in MATLAB for the purpose of rapid aerodynamic design and analysis of extreme-scale SUMR rotors with possible segmented multiconing.…”

Section: Future Workmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Development of an Aerodynamic Analysis Methodology for Segmented Ultralight Morphing Rotors

Bansal

Ananda

Selig

2017

35th AIAA Applied Aerodynamics Conference

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

The Segmented Ultralight Morphing Rotor (SUMR) concept for a 50 MW wind turbine will help alleviate the technical challenges presented by a conventional upwind rotor design for such extreme-scale wind turbines. Such segmented rotor blades can be morphed to achieve load alignment which will significantly reduce the cantilever moments, thus allowing for a lighter blade design. Depending on the wind speed, these rotors may be morphed into highly coned configurations. Consequently, a computational tool was developed in this study for the analysis of the SUMR rotors in different morphing configurations. The analysis tool was developed by modifying the Blade Element Momentum method for the morphing rotor geometry. The model was implemented in a MATLAB code, BladeMorph, and will be subsequently combined with PROPID for the purpose of rapid design and analysis of the large-scale SUMR rotors. An example 13 MW SUMR rotor, referred to as the E-13 rotor in this paper, was designed in PROPID and analyzed in BladeMorph for various cone angles to obtain the C P and C T vs tip speed ratio curves and radial distributions of pertinent aerodynamic parameters. The predictions from BladeMorph were then compared with AeroDyn v14, and it was found that the predictions from both codes were in fairly good agreement. A large reduction in both rotor power and rotor thrust coefficients with an increase in coning angles was found. The angles of attack α, lift coefficient C l , and drag cofficient C d along the blade length were reduced at higher coning, while the variation in the net relative velocity, Reynolds number, and dynamic pressure along the blade was found to be minimal. Finally, with increasing coning, the axial induction distribution was found to increase toward the outboard region of the blade compared with the zero coning case, while decreasing near the inboard region of the blade.

show abstract

Section: Future Workmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Future Workmentioning

confidence: 99%