Objective
OBJECTIVES OF THE PROJECT:
The European wind industry uses wind turbine analysis codes for the calculation of dynamic loads and energy yield. These codes consist among others of a wind simulator and an aeroelastic model. The results of these codes are important for the design of wind turbine (components) and for certification purposes.
In Europe different codes are used which are developed by several organisations. The level of confidence the industry and the certification institutes may have in these codes is unknown.
The objectives of the project are:
- To assess the accuracy and reliability of the most widely used European wind turbine design codes for improved support of wind turbine design and certification;
- To define recommendations for improvement of the present wind turbine design codes and the required supporting experiments.
TECHNICAL APPROACH:
An overall verification of the most widely used European wind turbine codes is performed. Eight wind turbine codes from five different countries (Denmark, Greece, Great Britain, Netherlands and Sweden) will be involved. Code predictions of mechanical loads (blade loads, rotor loads and tower loads) will be compared with a reference set of high quality experimental data on modern wind turbines. The measurements are obtained at different conditions (normal operating conditions and special events).
The experiments will be performed on three different wind turbines (WindMaster 600, Nordtank 500 and Tacke 500) with three different control strategies (stall regulated, pitch regulated and variable speed in combination with free yaw). The diameter of the turbines range between 37 and 48 m. The turbines are considered to be representative for the present and future generation of wind turbines
EXPECTED ACHIEVEMENTS
- The present verification project gives insight into the performance of the different state of the art wind turbine codes. On basis of this insight the wind energy industry can make well-founded decisions on the use and the selection of codes for the design process.
- The project results form a basis for the determination of more accurate partial load factors, or other safety margins which account for the uncertainty in the results from load calculations. This enables the wind energy industry to design more reliable wind turbines or to reduce weight and costs of wind turbine (components).
- From the objected recommendations on code improvements more reliable and accurate codes can bedeveloped for future improvement of industrial products.
- The measurements are stored in a data base on CD-ROM and a WWW-site. Then they can be used in future projects to validate new or modified wind turbine codes.
- European certification institutes can assess results determined with known and verified codes more efficiently. This yields lower certification costs for the industry and accelerates procedures and the time to market introduction.
Fields of science
Call for proposal
Data not availableFunding Scheme
CSC - Cost-sharing contractsCoordinator
1755 LE PETTEN
Netherlands