IEA-15MW Turbine - Loads and performance data for comparison

Wind & Water Computer-Aided Engineering Software Tools
1

Hi,

I was wondering what reports or other data there is available for the loads and turbine performance characteristics for the IEA-15MW reference turbine? The two following reports have very useful data:

nrel.gov/docs/fy20osti/75698.pdf
nrel.gov/docs/fy20osti/77106.pdf

Any further information, particularly on fatigue loading (damage equivalent loads etc) and controller parameters (e.g. time histories of demanded pitch rate) would be helpful additional references for validating simulations.

Best regards,
David
Atkins Offshore Wind, UK

2

Hi David,

Due to limited time and funding, we did not do any fatigue analysis on the IEA Wind 15MW Reference Turbine (both monopile and floating variants). For controller pitch histories, we unfortunately no longer have the original DLC runs used for the turbine, so we advise users to generate their own output files.

You should also be aware that we are prepping an update to the 15MW in the coming month or so that addresses some issues raised by the community. Changes are described here:
[url]https://github.com/IEAWindTask37/IEA-15-240-RWT/blob/openfast_dev/ReleaseNotes.md[/url]

Cheers,
Garrett

3

Hi Garrett,

Thanks for your reply. I’ll keep an eye out for the updates on github.

Kind regards,
David

4

Any chance this fatigue analysis has been performed by anybody who is willing to share their simulation set-up and resulting fatigue loads (for example in terms of Damage Equivalent Loads)? If available, it would be highly appreciated!

5

Dear NREL team

I am Shuo-ting who is currently working with 15MW wind turbine to develop our own modelling capability for full loads analysis.

Firstly, we would like to do the verification against the paper from the IEA Wind TCP Task 37, “Definition of the IEA Wind 15-Megawatt Offshore Reference Wind Turbine” published March 2020.

One of the tasks for us is to do the assessment of the natural frequency of the full structures and wind turbine blade by BModes. However, I only found the turbine tower data in the BModes file per link here github.com/IEAWindTask37/IEA-15 … RWT/BModes.

I am not quite sure where I could access the blade profile in order to validate the blade natural frequencies and is it possible to conduct the analysis of natural frequencies for full structures including the tower, blade and substructures?

Another question is regarding the problem as shown below, and I am wondering if you could give me some advice to solve it.

Thanks for your time and patience.

Best regards
Shuo-Ting Chiang

BModes_15MW.JPG
BModes_15MW.JPG1084Ă—246 46.5 KB

6

Hello Shuo-ting,

Thank you for reaching out and your interest in the IEA Wind 15-MW reference turbine. We did not use BModes to generate the Elastodyn_blade.dat file. We used WISDEM and its wrapping of Frame3DD, which is functionally equivalent to BModes. Although BModes is still perfectly compatible with OpenFAST, it is a code that is no longer actively maintained and difficult to use on some platforms. Nevertheless, I think you could easily reconstruct a BModes input file from the data in the current Elastodyn file ([url]https://github.com/IEAWindTask37/IEA-15-240-RWT/blob/master/OpenFAST/IEA-15-240-RWT-Monopile/IEA-15-240-RWT-Monopile_ElastoDyn.dat[/url]), the Elastodyn-blade ([url]https://github.com/IEAWindTask37/IEA-15-240-RWT/blob/master/OpenFAST/IEA-15-240-RWT/IEA-15-240-RWT_ElastoDyn_blade.dat[/url]) file, and the tabular excel data ([url]https://github.com/IEAWindTask37/IEA-15-240-RWT/tree/master/Documentation[/url]) in the repository.

As for your BModes error in finding the eigenfrequency, you would have to post the input file in a new thread to get assistance.

Cheers,
Garrett

7

I have the same issue with Shuoting.

The input files that have the header “BModes v3.00 Main Input File” can be found in the same link as Shouting’s.

https://github.com/IEAWindTask37/IEA-15-240-RWT/tree/master/OpenFAST/IEA-15-240-RWT/BModes

By the way, it can be run with BModes version v1.03.01.
But it does not output the platform’s natural frequency.

Best,
Hakun

8

Dear @Hakun.Jang,

I’m not sure I understand what issue you are reporting regarding BModes. Can you clarify?

Best regards,

9

When running with the original files, the error message as in the previous post appears. I was told that the simulation will run well if the “tow_support” is 2 instead of 1.

I have an additional question:

BModes v3.00.00 outputs the 6-DOF platform’s natural frequency?

Best,

Hakun

10

Dear @Hakun.Jang,

Just a few comments:

  • The version of BModes frequently referenced on this forum as BModes_JJ can be used to predict the natural frequencies of a floating wind system based on the 6 rigid-body DOFs of the floater plus the elastic DOFs of the tower. Are you using this version of BModes? (Available from here: BModes_JJ.exe - Google Drive)

  • I was not the one who made the BModes input file you are using and can’t confirm if all of the specified properties are correct. (I’m not sure if the mass matrix, hydro_M) includes both floater mass/cm/inertia and added mass and if the stiffness matrix, hydro_K, includes the effects from hydrostatics and moorings.)

  • I do see one issue in the General parameters section of the input: hub_conn should be set to 2 to include the full 6 rigid-body DOFs of the floater.

  • Despite the above comments, I’m able to run the input file without modification using BModes_JJ and receive the eigensolution (although I’m not familiar enough with the model to know if the results are correct).

Best regards,

11

Thanks for the reply, @Jason.Jonkman .

For folks in this forum, BModes_JJ refers to version 1.03.01, whereas BModes v3.00.00 refers to the version distributed by the NREL website. (BModes | Wind Research | NREL)

BModes v3.00.00’s source code suggests that

The parameter, “tow_support”, has three options:
0: no additional support
1: Tension guy wires for the land-based tower
2: offshore turbine support: floating platform or monopile

However, in BModes v1.03.01, there are only two options: 0 or 1. I assume these correspond to options 0 and 2 in v3.00.00.

Therefore, the above input files can be used with “tow_support = 1” in BModes v1.03.01 or “tow_support = 2” in BModes v3.00.00.

The slight different results may be caused by the new finite element solver mentioned in the BModes Change Log ( https://www.nrel.gov/wind/nwtc/assets/text/changelogbmodes.txt).

Best,

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