Frontier Wind, Llc.

Siemens Aktiengesellschaft

University of California

Siemens Gamesa Renewable Energy A/s

Ge Infrastructure Technology, LLC

Edward Anthony Mayda

Jonathon Paul Baker

Cornelis P Van Dam

Erick James Rickards

Kevin Lee Jackson

Alonso O Zamora Rodriguez

Leigh Zalusky

Thomas Jay Green

Jeffrey Austin Butterworth

Tobias Guenther Wehrhan

Jehan Zeb Khan

Kristian Robert Dixon

Guojian Lin

Roger Clayton Strawn

An apparatus and system for compensating for various load situations in a turbine includes the use of one or more deployable devices configured to extend an air deflector outwardly from a surface of a rotor blade. The air deflector may subsequently be retracted into the rotor blade once the load falls below a certain threshold. Mechanisms for extending and retracting the air deflector may include pneumatic, hydraulic and/or electromechanical devices. Air deflectors are generally configured to modify the air flow around the rotor blade to increase or decrease power generation, or reduce loads so that the risk of potential damage to components of the wind turbine is minimized. Deflectors may be positioned at various chordwise stations including leading-edge, mid-chord, and trailing-edge locations on the upper and lower surfaces at spanwise positions. Accordingly, a plurality of devices can be actuated to aerodynamically control rotor performance and loads based on wind conditions.

Wind turbine with deployable air deflectors

A wind turbine blade (B-C) with a rounded trailing edge (A-E) and an elongated tab (A-J) extending from the pressure side (PS) within the aft 10% of the local chord (C) and generally parallel to the trailing edge to increase lift. The tab may have a height (H) that is greatest on the radially inboard end to maximize lift, and lower on the outboard end to minimize drag. It may have a base with a length of at least 60% of its height.

Wind turbine blade with trailing edge tab

An adjustable lift regulating device () on an inboard portion of a wind turbine blade (). The lift regulating device is activated to reduce lift on the inboard portion of the blade by causing flow separation () on the suction side () of the blade. To compensate for the lost lift, the blade pitch is increased to a running pitch that facilitates stalling on the outer portion of the blade in gusts. This provides passive reduction of fatigue and extreme loads from gusts while allowing full power production under non-gust conditions.

Method and apparatus for reduction of fatigue and gust loads on wind turbine blades

A mandrel () defines a void geometry in a layup for a blade shell () via a rigid mandrel core () and a plurality of expandable bladders (A-F,A-F) attached adjacently to each other in sequence around a periphery of the core, forming an expandable outer cover on the mandrel. The bladders are controllably expandable (B,) individually or in proper subsets of all the bladders to adjust pressure distribution and mandrel position within the layup after closing a blade shell mold over the layup. The bladders may be transversely partitioned () at multiple spanwise (S) positions along the mandrel in order to define additional sets of adjustable bladders along the span of the mandrel.

Hybrid solid-inflatable mandrel for blade manufacturing

Systems, apparatuses, and methods are provided for actuating less than all of a plurality of load management devices on a wind turbine and/or a wind turbine blade. In some embodiments, the actuation sequences may be a root-to-tip, tip-to root, maximum-distributed-load, random, and/or a cycle-count actuation sequence. Further, a combination of two or more actuation sequences may be utilized to achieve a desired result. The system may choose an appropriate blade-based and/or rotor-based actuation sequence according to operating conditions, may alternate actuation sequences, and/or may employ different actuation sequences among the plurality of blades of a wind turbine. The load management devices may be actuated to different maximum heights and/or may be configured to be actuated to variable heights. The load management devices may be included as part of a distributed management system providing a corresponding controller and/or sensor at each load management device.

Actuation of distributed load management devices on aerodynamic blades

A system and method for pressure based load measurement are provided. The system and method measure at least one pressure differential on an airfoil and determine at least one aerodynamic load associated with the at least one pressure differential. The determined at least one load is used to modify characteristics of the airfoil to increase efficiency and/or avoid damage. The determined at least one aerodynamic load may be further utilized to balance and/or optimize loads at the airfoil, estimate a load distribution along the airfoil used to derive other metrics about the airfoil, and/or used in a distributed control system to increase efficiency and/or reduce damage to, e.g., one or more wind turbines.

Blade balancing

Load distribution estimation

Determining loads using various sensor locations

An active sensing system for wind turbines is described. The sensing system may include a plurality of ports, a local sensing device and a load mitigation device and may be operably coupled to a control system. The plurality of ports, local sensing device, and load mitigation device may be operably coupled and configured to monitor air pressure on wind turbine blades, determine if proper sensing operation is occurring, and eradicate an obstruction if proper sensing operation is being prevented by the obstruction. Associated methods performing the sensing and eradication of the obstruction including purging and deicing are disclosed. Wind turbines and wind turbine blades with the active sensing system are also described.

Wind turbine load mitigation device and port configuration

A system and method for a pressure based load measurement system are provided. The system includes two pressure orifices arranged on a top surface and a bottom surface of an airfoil. The pressure differential between these two points is determined and an estimate of the aerodynamic load generated by the airfoil is determined from a linear correlation between pressure differential and load. The location of the orifices may be optimized using analytical or experimental techniques and a least squares empirical curve fit may be used to fit the data collected.

Pressure based load measurement

One embodiment of the present invention provides a system that facilitates automatically generating a performance table for an object, wherein the object is subject to fluid flow. The system operates by first receiving a description of the object and testing parameters for the object. The system executes a flow solver using the testing parameters and the description of the object to produce an output. Next, the system determines if the output of the flow solver indicates negative density or pressure. If not, the system analyzes the output to determine if the output is converging. If converging, the system writes the output to the performance table for the object.

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Thornton, CO, United States of America

Edward Anthony Mayda