The Effect of a Flexible Blade for Load Alleviation in Wind Turbines
Azael Duran Castillo,
Juan C. Jauregui-Correa,
Francisco Herbert,
Krystel K. Castillo-Villar,
Jesus Alejandro Franco,
Quetzalcoatl Hernandez-Escobedo,
Alberto-Jesus Perea-Moreno,
Alfredo Alcayde
Affiliations
Azael Duran Castillo
Faculty of Engineering, Universidad Autonoma de Queretaro, Cerro de las Campanas S/N, Queretaro 76010, Mexico
Juan C. Jauregui-Correa
Faculty of Engineering, Universidad Autonoma de Queretaro, Cerro de las Campanas S/N, Queretaro 76010, Mexico
Francisco Herbert
Mechanical Engineering Department, Texas Sustainable Energy Research Institute, University of Texas at San Antonio, One UTSA Circle, San Antonio, TX 78249, USA
Krystel K. Castillo-Villar
Mechanical Engineering Department, Texas Sustainable Energy Research Institute, University of Texas at San Antonio, One UTSA Circle, San Antonio, TX 78249, USA
Jesus Alejandro Franco
Escuela Nacional de Estudios Superiores Unidad Juriquilla, UNAM, Queretaro 76230, Mexico
Quetzalcoatl Hernandez-Escobedo
Escuela Nacional de Estudios Superiores Unidad Juriquilla, UNAM, Queretaro 76230, Mexico
Alberto-Jesus Perea-Moreno
Departamento de Física Aplicada, Radiología y Medicina Física, Universidad de Córdoba, Campus de Rabanales, 14071 Córdoba, Spain
Alfredo Alcayde
Department of Engineering, University of Almería, La Cañada de San Urbano, 04120 Almería, Spain
This article presents the analysis of the performance of a flexible wind turbine blade. The simulation analysis is based on a 3 m span blade prototype. The blade has a flexible surface and a cam mechanism that modifies the aerodynamic profile and adapts the surface to different configurations. The blade surface was built with a flexible fiberglass composite, and the internal mechanism consists of a flexible structure actuated with an eccentric cam. The cam mechanism deforms five sections of the blade, and the airfoil geometry for each section was measured from zero cam displacement to full cam displacement. The measured data were interpolated to obtain the aerodynamic profiles of the five sections to model the flexible blade in the simulation process. The simulation analysis consisted of determining the different aerodynamic coefficients for different deformed surfaces and a range of wind speeds. The aerodynamic coefficients were calculated with the BEM method (QBlade®); as a result, the data performance of the flexible blade was compared for the different deformation configurations. Finally, a decrease of up to approximately 6% in the mean bending moment suggests that the flexible turbine rotor presented in this article can be used to reduce extreme and fatigue loads on wind turbines.
