HARP_Opt help with structural optimization

Wind & Water Computer-Aided Engineering Software Tools
1

Hi,

I am writing my Master Thesis on tidal turbines, and I am trying to used HARP_Opt to its optimization. I am having some trouble concerning structural optimization. More specifically, I do not manage to run the structural optimization when using airfoils whose .prof files were not already in the input_files. The code reports an error regarding a “StrainLE” variable.

I looked through some other threads in the forum about this topic, and so far I only found someone else talking about this problem:

That is, when performing the structural optimization with the FFA airfoils and the default values, it works perfectly. But I uploaded (in the right folder and wth the proper name) the profile coordinates for some NACA airfoils, and when trying to run the code it reports Undefined function or variable “StrainLE”. I am not sure if that is a problem of the format of the new .prof files I saved, or is there something I am doing wrong? Unlike Kristian, I could not solve the error with his temporary solution.

Thank you very much in advance for your help,

Maria Verges

2

hi Maria,

were you able to figure this out? My first thought is to check the format of the *.prof files, which have the x-y coordinates of the airfoils. Check if the order of points goes clockwise or counter-clockwise around the airfoil (I think it should be clockwise). Also I think the first and last points should be 0,0 (corresponding to the leading edge). Also, the code expects the coordinates to start on the 5th line. Just some ideas, let me know if that helped.

~Danny

3

Hi Danny,

sorry for my late reply. I did finally manage to find what the problem was, and it was indeed a tiny formatting difference in the input files for the foils.
Than you anyways!

However now I constantly get a problem with the “printing” of results. When the optimization is complete, the software says the CAT arguments are inconsistent and that the horzcat function did not work. This was something that happened sometimes before, but I did not know why because I used to just re-start the optimization and it usually worked. But now it appears everytime so I am getting no results at all…

Is there some objective reason for that?

Thank you again!

Maria