Wind turbines examined to improve technology
The EU-funded project 'Procedures for testing and measuring wind energy systems' (Protest) will deliver a batch of reports aimed at bettering the construction and day-to-day working of wind turbines. These will examine a variety of subjects including present-day procedures for developing mechanical systems of wind turbines and areas for improvement. Much focus will be on design loads, with reports looking at various aspects of this subject including whether the set of design load cases currently used is adequate for not only determining the global rotor and tower loads, but also for determining the design loads for mechanical components. If not, the project team will specify additional load cases. It also plans to recommend practices for component modelling. All of the reports will be applied to three case studies and findings from the case studies used to update the recommended practices and procedures. Moreover, all results from the Protest project will be submitted to the relevant standardisation committees on wind energy, and they will be published at wind energy conferences and workshops. The results are intended to better specify the procedures for prototype measurements in order to bring the design and development process of mechanical components to the same level as the design and development process of rotor blades. The report describing wind turbine mechanical systems, taking into account the current design and simulation models and feedback from prototype measurements, has been completed. As, too, the report determining load cases for drive trains, pitch and yaw systems, and critical design variables. A major result, according to the researchers, has been the development of a new method applied to the pitch system. This method contains six steps that should be followed to set up and use a so-called ′measurement campaign′ to validate or improve the component model.
