Modelling of WT Blade Installation with ADAMS2AD

Wind & Water Computer-Aided Engineering Software Tools
1

Good day,

For my final master thesis research I am investigating the possibilities of raising the maximum allowable wind speed for installing wind turbine blades. At the moment the industry is capable of installing a single wind turbine blade offshore up to 10 m/s wind. In order to find solutions to raise this wind speed I will be simulating a free hanging wind turbine blade in horizontal position from two cables in unsteady conditions under different pitch and yaw angles.

My question is:

  1. Is AeroDyn capable of calculating the aerodynamic forces on a horizontal “free” hanging blade (so not clamped and not rotating) for different yaw and pitch angles?
  2. Is it possible to model the dynamic system of cables in ADAMS and couple this with AeroDyn?

I hope to have informed you well, if you have any questions I could elaborate more on the aim of the study.

Thank you in advance and I hope to hear some comments and ideas.

Best regards,

Lukas

2

Dear Lukas,

AeroDyn was specifically developed for rotors, where e.g. induction of the flow (wake) and unsteady airfoil aerodynamics are important. For stationary blades, AeroDyn can’t do more than a simple strip theory calculation based on 2D airfoil data and the relative flow speed. It would take work (coding changes) to modify AeroDyn so that it only applies to isolated blades, but if all your interested in is a simple strip theory calculation based on 2D airfoil data and the relative flow speed, it would probably be easier to code that up independently of AeroDyn.

I have not attempted to model cable dynamics with ADAMS. My understanding is that ADAMS does not have specific cable elements, but you can likely model a cable using a lumped parameter formulation with ADAMS with a suitable model set-up.

Best regards,