Wind Turbine Team

1
Wind Turbine Team

• Team Members
• Stuart Gleason
• Casey Pratt
• Jared
  Nelson
• Mike Homel
• Chris
  Binger

2
Presentation Outline

• Project History
• Current Project Standing
• Overall Design Goals
• Design Considerations
• Future Plans

3
Project History

• 04-05 Team Started the Wind Turbine Project after
  being awarded a 10,000 stage 1 P-3 grant from
  EPA
• 05-06 Team wrote proposal for stage 2 P-3 grant
  requesting 36,000 to complete the turbine
• Steve Garner and Stuart Gleason presented in
  Washington D.C., but were not awarded the stage 2
  grant
• Due to a loss of funding, respective team mates
  chose to pursue different projects

4
Current Project Standing

• To bring the current team up to speed crucial
  sections were divided into areas of interest,
  researched, and will be presented to the team.
• Chris Binger Gathering data and design
  parameters from the previous team
• Stuart Gleason Studying Advanced Rotor
  Aerodynamics
• Mike Homel Pursuing the design and
  implementation of software to aid
  in data acquisition for blade
  design
• Jared Nelson Exploring local composite
  material manufacturing resources
  and processes
• Casey Pratt Researching Design
  Considerations
• The team is also developing a fundraising
  brochure for several prospective cash and
  material donors.

5
Overall Design Goals

• Produce a high quality design that will utilize
  current and developing blade technology in order
  to provide a high efficiency, dependable and
  durable rotor blade.
• Continue the work done by the previous years Wind
  Turbine team in hopes of establishing a more in
  depth and developed Wind Engineering test-bed
  program here at the University of Utah.

6
Design Considerations

• Locke, J and Valencia, U (2004, June) Design
  Studies for twist coupled wind turbine blade,
  National institute for aviation research,
  September 2005
• Aerodynamic damping for transient load reduction
• Use of Bend-twist coupling (passive anticipatory
  control)
• Flap wise loading to twist
• Centrifugal loading to twist

7
Design Considerations

• Material Selection and
  Processes
• Materials
• Prepreg, Carbon Fiber, Glass
• Process type
• Autoclave, RTM, wet lay-up
• Advisory role
• Dr. Adams
• Which of these can we afford or have donated?
• (Pictures courtesy of Ray
  Publishing)

8
Design Considerations

• Aerodynamic damping for transient load
  reduction
• Use of Composite material (ex. Carbon Fiber) to
  produce a stiff and lightweight design, thus
  reducing vibration and fatigue characteristics.
• Use of Vortex generators to prevent blade stall
  at low speeds.
• Use of embedded micro-tabs for active stall and
  over-speed control.

9
Design Considerations

• Aerodynamic Flow analyses
• Inclusion of systematically placed pitot-static
  tubes and strain gauges for later design teams
  further aerodynamic analyses of blades.
• Investigations into stall flutter
• Currently very hard to model
• Leading factor in blade fatigue
• Requires further study of vibrational modes and
  harmonic frequencies

10
Design Considerations

• Acoustical Studies in Noise Reduction
• Advanced study in tip noise reduction

11
Design Considerations

• Computational Studies
• Design of a paired Matlab/ANSYS program to
  predict loads and forces present on blade design.
• To be used by future teams in further blade
  design as well as incorporated and referenced for
  tower and other component design.
• Locke, J and Valencia,
  U (2004, June) Design Studies for twist coupled
  wind turbine blade, National institute for
  aviation research, September 2005

12
Future Plans

• Continue Group Research
• Layout of initial design needs and requirements
• Further Allocation of materials/funding required