Extreme events

Dear Mahdi,

Negative OoPDefl means that the blade is deflected upwind of the undeflected cone of rotation.

35 m/s is far beyond the normal operational wind speed of the NREL 5-MW turbine. At very high wind speeds, the blade-pitch angles will become very large so as to keep the power and rotor speed at rated values (5 MW and 12.1 rpm, respectively). While the overall torque and thrust will remain positive in this case, the thrust will be very small and the outer-most portions of the blade can see negative angles of attack–and thus negative lift forces. It is these forces that can deflect the blade upwind. (The innermost portions of the blade will still maintain positive angles of attack–and thus positive lift forces–but while these forces will keep the overall torque and thrust positive, they have less contribution to the blade deflection because the blade is far stiffer inboard than it is outboard.)

Best regards,