Investigation of Site-Specific Wind Field Parameters and Their Effect on Loads of Offshore Wind Turbines

authored by

Benedikt Ernst, Jörg R. Seume

Abstract

The main contributing factors to unsteady loading of Offshore Wind Turbines (OWT) are wind shear, turbulence, and waves. In the present paper, the turbulence intensity and the wind shear exponent are investigated. Using data from the FINO 1 research platform, these parameters are analyzed and compared with the proposed wind field parameters in the IEC standard 61400-3. Based on this analysis, aeroelastic simulations are performed to determine the effect of wind field parameters on the fatigue and the extreme loads on the rotor blades. For the investigations, the aeroelastic model of a 5 MW OWT is used with a focus on design load cases in an operating state (power production). The fatigue loads are examinedby means of the damage-equivalent load-range approach. In order to determine the extreme loads with a recurrence period of 50 years, a peak over threshold extrapolation method and a novel method based on average conditional exceedance ratesare used. The results show that the requirements of the IEC standard are very conservative for the design of the rotor blades. Therefore, there could be a large optimization potential for the reduction of weight and cost of the rotor blades.

Organisation(s)

Institute of Turbomachinery and Fluid Dynamics

Type

Article

Journal

ENERGIES

Volume

5

Pages

3835-3855

No. of pages

21

ISSN

1996-1073

Publication date

08.10.2012

Publication status

Published

Peer reviewed

Yes

ASJC Scopus subject areas

Renewable Energy, Sustainability and the Environment, Energy Engineering and Power Technology, Energy (miscellaneous), Control and Optimization, Electrical and Electronic Engineering

Sustainable Development Goals

SDG 7 - Affordable and Clean Energy

Electronic version(s)

https://doi.org/10.3390/en5103835 (Access: Open)