Wind Energy Research

Personnel:

Dr. Ziaul Huque, Group Lead and Co-PI, Department of Mechanical Engineering
 

Summary of Wind Energy Research

 

1. Advanced design process for new wind turbine system

  • Development of advanced wind turbine blade with new multi-purpose design process to increase aerodynamic, aero-acoustic and structural performance.
  • Advanced analytical method to reduce the sound noise pollution for wind turbine blade. Sound noise simulation of wind turbine blade considering the rotating effect using advanced computational aero-acoustic method.
  • Fluid structure interaction for wind turbine blade to evaluate the aerodynamic characteristics.
  • Life-cycle based fatigue analysis for wind turbine blade using fluid-structure interaction approaches
  • Advanced unsteady CFD simulation for rotating 3D wind turbine blade
  • Hybrid combination of new technology : FEM, CFD, FSI, CAA

Advanced New Design Process

2. Advanced CFD simulation frame work

  • Development of advanced computational fluid dynamic simulation frame work for new wind turbine blade design.
  • The developed CFD frame work can be applied to the various engineering purposes: Aerodynamic, Aeroacoustic, Fluid-structure interaction, wake meandering analysis, etc.
  • Unsteady LES, DES, URANS simulations. Rotating wind blade effects (rigid body motion). Easy to solve with high computing cost effectiveness.
  • The aerodynamic characteristics of wind blade affected by the y+, turbulence model, and transition model.
  • The SST, k-w, k-e, RS turbulent model were considered for RANS and URANS
  • LES : Wale Subgrid Scale algorithm, Smagorinsky Subgrid Scale algorithm
  • DES : SST turbulent model with fully turbulent or two equation transition model.

Unsteady Rotating Blade: LES, DES URANS

 

3. Sound noise simulations: steady state broadband noise source simulations

  • Wind farms are increasing in US for renewable and green energy resources. Some of them are located near residential areas and town. The most harmful pollution of wind farm is the sound noise emission from the wind turbine blade.
  • Our research works are focused on the development of new computational technology to reduce the sound noise which came from the aero-acoustic air pressure of wind blade.
  • Simulations are performed for wind blades with complex computational and numerical issues like aero-acoustic simulation using advance CFD frame work.
  • The steady state broadband noise sources simulation : surface and volume.
  • Steady hybrid Ffowcs Williams-Hawkings algorithm was combined with CFD.
  • The unsteady state near to far field sound pressure level (dB) was simulated and compared with human hearing threshold.
  • The LES, DES, URANS considered and compared with each other to evaluate the sound noise level and efficiency of turbulent algorithm.

Sound source detection on the 3D surface and air volume

NREL Phase VI wind turbine blade, LES Turbulence, Upwind Stream and Surface Total Sound Noise

4. Advanced Fluid Structure Interaction frame work

  • Our research works are focused on the development of new approach for aerodynamic force evaluation by fluid-structure interaction frame work.
  • The developed fluid-structure interaction frame work can be applied to 1-way or 2-way fluid structure interaction simulation.
  • The exact aerodynamic pressure load on the wind blade structure which is made of fiber reinforced polymer composites are evaluate using FSI, and then the extensive fatigue analysis using the evaluated aerodynamic load are performed.
  • We can evaluate the exact aerodynamic load by the help of interface between two different domains.
  • The structural model development process is developed using eigen-value analysis.
  • By using the fluid-structure interaction frame work, we can perform the fatigue analysis and structural damage analysis.

Advanced Fluid Structure Interaction frame work

5. Wake meandering analysis of wind turbine

  • Numerical studies are developed for unsteady behavior of the wake of a wind turbine to see the effect of the meandering of the wake on the turbine when placed in an incoming flow with turbulence intensity typical for atmospheric turbulence as compared to an incoming flow with a low turbulence intensity.
  • Unsteady state rotating wind blades are considered. The LES (Wale Subgrid Scale algorithm) simulations were performed. The reference and rotating frame motions are considered and compared with each other.
  • The developed advanced CFD frame work is used for NREL Phase VI wind turbine system which is rotating at 72 RPM. Various upstream wind speed cases are considered.
  • In the future, the wake meandering effect for aerodynamic and aeroacoustic field will be studied.

Wake meandering analysis of wind turbine
6. Mobine (Mobile-Turbine) development

  • The Electric and Hybrid cars are increasing in US for reducing the green house effects. Our research works are focused on the development of “Mobine (Mobile-Turbine)” inside car to generate electricity.
  • The work is focused on:
    • Shape and layout optimization of Mobine (Mobile-Turbine)
    • Sound noise optimization
  • To evaluate the Auto-Bine (Automotive vehicle Turbine) optimum layout studies on power, the preliminary blade layout study will be performed. The rigid body motion of rotating blade effects, steady RANS simulation, Unsteady LES, DES, URANS simulation and 1-way, 2-way FSI simulation will be performed.
  • To develop sound noise reduced eco-car design, we will evaluate the aero-acoustic sound noise and eventually propose noise free eco-car design process.
  • The direct noise simulation using DES and LES will be performed. The hybrid integral CAA (FfWH) with combination of rigid body motion of rotating blade and unsteady LES, DES, URANS simulation will be considered.

Automatic Vehicle Turbine

Volume and Surface sound noise source