Leading Edge Microspoilers for Load Dumping in Wind Turbine Rotors

B. Mertz, Pietro Bortolotti, Nikhar Abbas, Nick Johnson, J. Paquette, W. Jordan

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

1 Scopus Citations

Abstract

As rotor designs have grown in size and flexibility, new design challenges have arisen that could benefit from novel control strategies. Leading edge microspoilers (LEMS) have been shown to effectively reduce forces on airfoils by inducing stall at lower angles of attack. This paper investigates how LEMS can be used to reduce blade loading on large, flexible, downwind rotors during design-limiting design load cases. During shutdown in turbulent flows near cutout speed, LEMS could reduce the tip deflection spikes toward the tower by over 50% and keep flapwise root bending moments below normal operating conditions, thus eliminating these as design-driving load cases. In power producing load cases, deploying LEMS for a short period of time during a load spike can be effective to reduce toward-tower tip deflections without significantly impacting power produced, assuming these load spikes can be identified by a controller. Leveraging this technology could allow for lower specific power machines to be designed.

Original languageAmerican English
Article numberArticle No. 032024
Number of pages9
JournalJournal of Physics: Conference Series
Volume2265
Issue number3
DOIs
StatePublished - 2 Jun 2022
Event2022 Science of Making Torque from Wind, TORQUE 2022 - Delft, Netherlands
Duration: 1 Jun 20223 Jun 2022

Bibliographical note

Publisher Copyright:
© Published under licence by IOP Publishing Ltd.

NREL Publication Number

  • NREL/JA-5000-82422

Keywords

  • active aerodynamics
  • leading edge devices
  • wind energy

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