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UpWind: Design limits and solutions for very large wind turbines

Ansprechpartner: Mohammad Kamruzzaman, Dr.-Ing. Thorsten Lutz, Dr.-Ing Werner Wuerz

UpWind

Project Information & Challenges

UpWind was a European project funded under the EU's Sixth Framework Programme (FP6) that ran from 2006 to 2011. The project looked towards the wind power of tomorrow, more precisely towards the design of very large wind turbines (8-10MW), both onshore and offshore. The challenges inherent to the creation of wind farms of several hundreds MW request the highest possible standards in design, complete understanding of external design conditions, the design of materials with extreme strength to mass ratios and advanced control and measuring systems geared towards the highest degree of reliability, and critically, reduced overall turbine mass. The wind turbines of the future necessitate the re-evaluation of the turbine itself for its re-conception to cope with future challenges. The aim of the project was to develop the accurate, verified tools and component concepts the industry needs to design and manufacture this new type of turbine. UpWind focused on design tools for the complete range of turbine components. It addressed the aerodynamic, aero-elastic, structural and material design of rotors. Critical analysis of drive train components was carried out in the search for breakthrough solutions. The UpWind consortium, composed of 40 partners, brought together the most advanced European specialists of the wind industry. The findings of the project were disseminated through a series of workshops. As the project includes many scientific disciplines which need to be integrated in order to arrive at specific design methods, new materials, components and concepts, the project's organisation structure is based on work packages (WPs) which variously deal with scientific research (8 WPs), the integration of scientific results (3 WPs), and their integration into technical solutions (4 WPs). External communication and the dissemination of project findings is considered essential and therefore has been organised in a separate additional work package. The Institute of Aerodynamics & Gas Dynamics (IAG), University of Stuttgart lead the task WP2.5: Computation of Aerodynamics Noise- RANS Based Acoustic Models under the Work Package (WP)-2: Aerodynamics and Aeroelastics.

Objectives of IAG

Aerodynamic noise is a design parameter influencing cost. Design codes for prediction of broad band noise give reasonable overall results. Improvements are needed for detailed airfoil and blade design. Considerable improvements are 2D RANS-CFD based noise computations. The challenge was to compute the generation of noise based on time-averaged local turbulence parameters up through the boundary layer height at the airfoil trailing edge. Approach were:
  • Boundary-layer experiments to validate and select appropriate turbulence models and improve the capability of existing noise prediction tools and link it with CFD.
  • Development of a RANS based approach (Rnoise) for computation of aerodynamic noise generation as function of detailed turbulence data from CFD computation on a 2D airfoil.
  • Validation of the complete prediction tool to be use of the enhanced model for aeroacoustic analysis for the new airfoil designed in WP1B3.
  • Improve the capability of the noise prediction tool (Rnoise) by considering anisotropy effects and development of a semi empirical law for the derivation of the turbulence properties.
  • Comprehensive comparisons of the numerical results of various prediction codes with measurements.

Key Results

  • A RANS based trailing-edge noise prediction model called Rnoise for the isotropic and anisotropic turbulence has been developed
  • Wind tunnel measurements of turbulent boundary-layer, wall pressure spectrum and radiated trailing-edge noise have been performed at the Laminar Wind Tunnel (LWT) of the University of Stuttgart
  • A theoretically consistent approach for the derivation of turbulence spectra, length scales and Reynolds stresses have been developed
  • Extensive assessment and step-by-step validation of different prediction schemes as developed by various partners have been conducted by comparison to detailed measurements.
    • results

Work package partners

  • Institute of Aerodynamics & Gas Dynamics (IAG), University of Stuttgart, Germany
  • Risø National Laboratory - DTU, Denmark
  • Energy research Centre of the Netherlands (NL)

Publications



Data Source: Upwind Project Website