Browsing by Author "Weber, H."

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A design and optimization method for matching the torque of the wind turbines
(AIP Publishing, 2015) Al-Abadi, A.; Ertunç, Özgür; Weber, H.; Delgado, A.; Mechanical Engineering; ERTUNÇ, Özgür
An aerodynamic shape optimization method for a horizontal axis wind turbine is developed and verified through experimentation with a laboratory-scale wind turbine. Our method is based on matching the rotor's and the coupled generator's torque. Prior to shape optimization, an initial rotor design is established with a hybrid use of Schmitz and blade element momentum theories. The experimental verification of the developed method is conducted with a small-scale wind turbine; thus, the operating Reynolds number is one order of magnitude lower than large-scale wind turbines. Therefore, a high-lift low-Re airfoil, namely, SG6043, is selected for the blade along the whole span. The shape is optimized by determining the optimum chord and cumulative pitch angle distributions by manipulating the tapering and twisting of the blade. The objective of the optimization is to maximize the turbine's power coefficient Cp , while maintaining the torque equal to that of the generator. The generator's characteristics are found through experimentations which are conducted apart from the wind tunnel experiments. During the optimization process, the local aerodynamic forces on the blade are calculated by interfacing the optimization program with XFOIL; thus, the torque and power can be calculated for the rotor at each iteration step. The optimized turbine performance is evaluated under a design and off-design operating condition. The performance verification experiments are carried out in the wind tunnel with a specially designed setup. A comparison of the measured and computed performance shows good agreement.
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A torque matched aerodynamic performance analysis method for the horizontal axis wind turbines
(Wiley, 2013-11) Al-Abadi, A.; Ertunç, Özgür; Weber, H.; Delgado, A.; Mechanical Engineering; ERTUNÇ, Özgür
An analysis method is developed to test the operational performance of a horizontal axis wind turbines. The rotor is constrained to the torque–speed characteristic of the coupled generator. Therefore, the operational conditions are realized by matching the torque generated by the turbine over a selected range of incoming wind velocity to that needed to rotate the generator. The backbone of the analysis method is a combination of Schmitz' and blade element momentum (BEM) theories. The torque matching is achieved by gradient-based optimization method, which finds correct wind speed at a given rotational speed of the rotor. The combination of Schmitz and BEM serves to exclude the BEM iterations for the calculation of interference factors. Instead, the relative angle is found iteratively along the span. The profile and tip losses, which are empirical, are included in the analysis. Hence, the torque at a given wind speed and rotational speed can be calculated by integrating semi-analytical equations along the blade span. The torque calculation method is computationally cheap and therefore allows many iterations needed during torque matching. The developed analysis method is verified experimentally by testing the output power and rotational speed of an existing wind turbine model in the wind tunnel. The generator's torque rotational speed characteristic is found by a separate experimental set-up. Comparison of experiments with the results of the analysis method shows a good agreement.