Can an air leak give turbine rotors an efficiency boost?

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Excerpt: An idea originally developed to increase lift in slow moving aircraft wings and simplify helicopter rotors may soon improve the efficiency of wind turbine rotors and possibly reduce their cost of manufacturing. This "circulation control" aerodynamic technology could let wind turbines produce signifi …

Fast Accurate Flow Solver for Wind Turbine Simulations

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Excerpt: AcuSolve, a general-purpose finite-element-based flow solver, has evolved through years of development, experience, and feedback. The software's advantages are its reliability, speed, and accuracy. Users can rapidly obtain quality solutions without iterating on solution procedures or worrying ab …

Simulating the Turbine-Simulating the Site

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Excerpt: Designing the most efficient and effective wind turbine calls for modeling tools that provide accurate, reliable numerical predictions of wind-turbine rotor performance over a machine’s full range of operating conditions. Simulating real-world conditions using computational fluid dynamics (CFD) le …

How to recognize drivetrain defects

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Excerpt: A Wind Turbine Drivetrain Diagnostics Simulator (WTDS) generates wind-turbine-drivetrain faults so users can learn to recognize signatures in a controlled environment. The setup lets users learn signatures of drivetrain component faults such as gear surface wear, cracks, chips, and missing teeth. By …

Simulation programs for the renewable-energy industry

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Excerpt: A range of simulation programs under the Ansys brand can models problems and equipment frequently encountered in the renewable energy industry. For wind turbines, the developer’s software models offshore wind-turbine foundations including fatigue and wave and current structure interaction; blade, …

CFD’s Role in the Windpower Industry

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Excerpt: Recent advances in CFD (computational fluid dynamics) codes and the availability of large scale computer “clusters” are guiding the design work of the next generation of wind turbines. Developers should be able to model a turbine’s power output versus wind velocity, and then the power output f …

How much power in the wind? Calculator tells

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Excerpt: A widget calculator includes a windpower conversion that considers air density, wind velocity, and a rotor area to calculate a theoretical maximum power (watts) in a particular breeze. Dry air has a density of about 1.2 kg/m3 at 20C and sea level, and a density of about 1.27 kg/m3 at 0C. Anot …

Webinar series: Reducing wind-turbine design time with simulations

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Excerpt: With increasing demand for alternate energy, manufacturers of large commercial and smaller residential wind turbines feel demand for greater performance. In this webinar series, hosted by FEA developer MSC.Software, attendees will learn from industry experts how simulation-driven developments are us …

CAD for wind turbines

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Excerpt: Ricardo Inc, a U.K. based engineering firm, says that its reliable analysis techniques can improve the power, performance, reliability, and cost effectiveness of wind turbines. Hence, the company is developing its commercial software for wind turbines. The mix of commercial and proprietary software …