Optimise thickness with RotorSE

Hi,

I’d like to investigate the benefits of moving to a higher tip speed ratio using WISDEM. As part of this there will be an aero-structural trade off, as the higher speed blade will be more slender which will lead to it also being thinner.

Is it possible to optimise the thickness as well as chord and twist? If not, does anyone have any suggestions on where I should start implementing this feature?

Thanks,

Pete

Hello Pete,

This feature is included in WISDEM in the in-development feature branch “IEAontology4all”. On this branch we are moving to the IEA Wind Task 37 Ontology definition of a wind turbine system ([url]https://windio.readthedocs.io/en/latest/[/url]) as out input to WISDEM, with additional input files controlling the analysis and optimization options. It will soon become the primary ‘develop’ branch as it becomes feature complete for all submodules and eventually make its way to the master. You will find a section of the optimization options file controlling the spanwise placement of airfoils here:
[url]https://github.com/WISDEM/WISDEM/blob/IEAontology4all/wisdem/assemblies/reference_turbines/optimization_options.yaml[/url]
The full spanwise relative thickness is determined with spline fits based on those airfoil position optimization variables and the airfoil profiles and polars are accordingly interpolated/blended along the span based on relative thickness distribution.

I’d also recommend you take a look at this paper, where WISDEM was used to study tip speed ratio and maximum tip speed effects on the system design: [url]https://www.nrel.gov/docs/fy15osti/61726.pdf[/url]

Best regards,
Evan Gaertner

Hello Evan,

U linked Github but not working now (404 error). Do you know where can I find this file?

Thanks,
Dagmara

Hello Dagmara,

Since Evan’s last message, we have released a major update to WISDEM solidifying the changes he outlined. Things are also better described in our online documentation now. I suggest looking at examples 02 and 03 ([url]https://wisdem.readthedocs.io/en/master/examples.html[/url]). You can also check out the examples on Github ([url]https://github.com/WISDEM/WISDEM/tree/master/examples[/url]). The file Evan previously linked to is now at: [url]https://github.com/WISDEM/WISDEM/blob/master/examples/02_reference_turbines/analysis_options.yaml[/url]

Cheers,
Garrett