Effects of platform induced pitching motion on the aerodynamics of a FOWT

The hunt for new methods to harness wind energy is at an all-time high as wind energy quickly overtakes other renewable energy sources. Deep waters are promising alternatives with higher average wind speed (thus, higher yields) and also due to lesser availability of land on shore. Even though the design of the blades and rotor of a FOWT is...

Semi-infinite laguerre functions for wind turbine wake modeling

With an increased demand for renewable energy wind farms, their efficiency receives growing attention from both the industry and academics. Mitigating wake interaction effects in wind farms is one of the ways wind farms could increase their efficiency. Control techniques to increase wake reenergizing are currently under development, however, are...

CFD Simulation of a Floating Wind Turbine with OpenFOAM: an FSI approach based on the actuator line and relaxation zone methods

Floating offshore wind turbines (FOWTs) have the potential to harness wind resources in deepwater, which is so far prohibitive for conventional approaches. This, however, comes at a cost: the platform’s extra degrees of freedom (DoFs) introduce complex aerodynamic and hydrodynamic behaviours. Therefore, FOWTs must be accurately modeled to reduce...

Optimization of a Multi-Element Airfoil for a Rigid Airborne Wind Energy Kite

Airborne wind energy (AWE) systems benefit from a high lift airfoil to increase the power output, to that end, multi-element airfoils are investigated for AWE applications. This thesis aims to optimize a multi-element airfoil for a rigid AWE kite that operates in a pumping cycle. Since the kite has distinct operational phases, i.e., reel-out and...

Wind farm wake flow recovery with the use of kites

With an ever increasing demand for sustainable energy, limitations of current sustainable technologies are studied widely. In wind farms, the so-called wake effect provides the biggest limitation on wind farm total power output. Using wind from the unaffected boundary layer to re-energize the wind flow in the wake provides a method of limiting...

CFD study of induction and finite blade effect on a floating horizontal-axis wind turbine

As the need for abundant and reliable renewable energy increases, there is a growing interest in floating wind turbines, which would allow to harness the wind resource in areas where bottom-founded wind turbines cannot be used. However, the movements of the platform are expected to cause unsteady aerodynamics effects, including different wake...

Frozen-RANS Turbulence Model Corrections for Wind Turbine Wakes in Stable, Neutral and Unstable Atmospheric Boundary Layers

Computational Fluid Dynamics based on RANS models remain the standard but suffer from high errors in complex flows. In particular, turbulent kinetic energy is over-produced in high strain rate regions, such as the near wake of wind turbine flows. Data-driven turbulence modelling methods aim to derive novel turbulence models with lower...

Comparison of Potential Flow and CFD for a Column With Heave Plate

Floating offshore wind turbines can only withstand a limited amount of (heave) motions before the equipment fails. In order to reduce the heave motion, the DeepCwind floater for offshore floating wind turbines makes use of heave plates. This semi-submersible floater consists of three cylindrical columns with a heave plate attached to the bottom...

Enhancement of data-driven turbulence models for wind turbine wake applications

Wind turbine wakes cause significant reductions in power production and increased fatigue damage for downwind turbines. Thus, they affect the wind levelized cost of energy. Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) can be used to quantify the wake characteristics, whereby Reynolds-averaged Navier-Stokes (RANS) has the most potential for industrial...

An Investigation of the Non-Linear 3D Flow Effects Relevant for Leading Edge Inflatable Kites

The kite power group at TU Delft is currently researching the use of leading edge inflatable (LEI) kites for use in power generation. A thorough understanding of the aeroelastics of these kites is paramount to the development of system simulation models and optimum kite and system designs. The current lack of understanding is therefore seen as a...