Endurance Wind Power Inc.

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Load Measurements During Extreme Wind Events

Tuesday, May 8, 2007

Windward Engineering L.L.C., as part of a contract with DOE under the Field Verification Program for Small Wind Turbines, has installed two small furling wind turbines. One is located at the National Wind Technology Center (NWTC) near Boulder Colorado and the other at our own test site in Spanish Fork, Utah.

The field verification program has two primary goals: 1) Determine and demonstrate the reliability and energy production of a furling wind turbine at a site where furling will be a very frequent event and extreme gusts can be expected during the duration of the tests, and 2) Make engineering measurements and conduct limited computer modeling of the furling behavior to improve the industry understanding of the mechanics and nature of furling.

The paper presented at Windpower 2001 focused primarily on the Whisper H40 operation and general operating experience at the Spanish Fork, Utah test site. This paper will give a brief update on the wind turbine operation but focus primarily on the extreme event measurements and computer modeling used to better understand furling.

A new NREL contract supports measurement of tower and blade bending loads on the turbine located in Spanish Fork, UT. These new measurements, combined with the existing ability to measure extreme events such as high rotor speeds (typically generated by extreme gusts) and extreme yaw rates, has given us new insight into what generates high loads on a furling wind turbine and the magnitude of these loads.

We also carried out a study to determine the accuracy of an ADAMS computer model. This study gives insight into the accuracy in which ADAMS can predict the variable speed operation, complex furling behavior, and loading of a small furling wind turbine. These results have been used to help determine the load safety factor that will be specified in the new revision of the IEC61400-2 safety standard.

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Load Measurements During Extreme Wind Events
Posted by Endurance Windpower on Tuesday, May 08, 2007


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