Numerical Analysis of the Drivetrain Behavior of a Large Horizontal-Axis Wind Turbine

CRISTIAN G. GEBHARDT; SERGIO PREIDIKMAN; JULIO C. MASSA

Bahía Blanca

Congreso; III MACI 2011 - Tercer Congreso de Matematica Aplicada Computacional e Industrial; 2011

El Departamento de Matemáticas de la Universidad Nacional del Sur, AR-SIAM (Sección Argentina de SIAM-Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics-USA) y ASAMACI (Asociación Argentina de Matemática Aplicada, Computacional e Industrial.

An aeroelastic model that captures the interaction between aerodynamics and drivetrain dynamics is used to study the behavior of a large horizontal-axis wind turbine in the starting initial regime, considering different laws of brake releasing. An aerodynamical model based on the general three dimensional version of the non-linear and unsteady vortex lattice method is used to compute the aerodynamic loads and their evolution in time domain. Moreover, the vorticity distribution in, and the position of, the wakes are obtained as part of the solution considering multiple interactions among blades, wakes, hub, nacelle, supporting tower, ground and land-surface boundary layer. In addition a model for the drivetrain is developed by considering the flexibility of the high speed shaft which connects the gear box and the generator. For the inter-model combination, a strong interaction numerical scheme was used. This scheme is based on the fourth order Hamming?s predictor-corrector method which allows to compute directly the solution in the time domain.