Software assists designing wind turbines

The main toolbar of GL Bladed gives users access to data entry screens which allows defining various turbine components.

Software called Bladed provides wind turbine and component manufacturers, certification agencies, design consultants, and research organizations a design tool that has been extensively validated against measured data from a wide range of turbines. The developer says the software is the industry standard for the design and certification of onshore and offshore turbines. It lets users conduct the full range of performance and loading calculations. Based on Windows, it supports calculations of combined wind and wave loading, with full aeroelastic and hydroelastic modeling. It has been validated by Germanischer Lloyd for the calculation of wind-turbine loads for design and certification.

Bladed uses a self-consistent and rigorous formulation of structural dynamics. This provides consistently reliable and accurate results, and forms a solid foundation from which to continue to extend the structural model with features as part of the ongoing development program.

The software has several specialist bolt-on modules covering steady state analysis, dynamic-load simulations, analysis of loads and energy capture, batch processing and automated report generation, interaction with the electrical network, and model linearization for control design.

The developer says the software is the industry standard for the design and certification of onshore and offshore turbines. It provides a design tool extensively validated against measured data from a wide range of turbines and lets them conduct a range of performance and loading calculations. Bladed offers a Windows-based interface and supports calculations of combined wind and wave loading, with full aeroelastic and hydroelastic modeling. It has been validated by Germanischer Lloyd for the calculation of wind turbine loads for design and certification. GL Garrad Hassan’s approach to the calculation of wind turbine performance and loading has been constantly evolving since 1984 . The corresponding ongoing software development has maintained GL Garrad Hassan’s reputation for delivering reliable tools for use in the design and certification of wind turbines.

Bladed software includes comprehensive models of complex wind fields which can excite the turbine.

Bladed V4 uses a new, completely self-consistent, and rigorous formulation of the structural dynamics. This provides consistently reliable and accurate results, and forms a solid foundation from which to extend the structural model with many new features in the ongoing development program. New features for Bladed V4 include:

• Modeling of Individual blade modes, valid for pitch angle
• Allowance for non-symmetrical rotor
• Fully coupled flapwise, edgewise, and torsional degrees of freedom in three-dimensional blade modes
• Advanced definition options for blade geometry and structure
• Torsional degree of freedom modeling for all tower types

Bladed is used by wind turbine and component manufacturers, certification agencies, design consultants and research organizations across the world. An educational version provides a world class tool for teaching wind turbine technology.

GL Garrad Hassan
www.gl-garradhassan.com