On Friday, July 17, a seminar will be held in Grandori Room, starting at 15:00 CET.
The seminar will be given by Luca Caracoglia, Full Professor in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Northeastern University (Boston, USA), and is titled “Wind Turbine Blade Flow-Induced Instabilities under Stochastic Load Perturbations and Partially Correlated Turbulence”.
Abstract
Offshore wind turbine manufacturers are proposing the design of tall, low-mass towers and long, flexible blades (up to 100 m and beyond) to increase wind energy extraction and reduce maintenance costs. Long, flexible blades are sensitive to wind load effects, either during operational conditions or extreme events. The interaction between the rotating blade and the flow can lead to dynamic vibrations, aeroelastic interactions and flow-induced instabilities.
Offshore wind turbine manufacturers are proposing the design of tall, low-mass towers and long, flexible blades (up to 100 m and beyond) to increase wind energy extraction and reduce maintenance costs. Long, flexible blades are sensitive to wind load effects, either during operational conditions or extreme events. The interaction between the rotating blade and the flow can lead to dynamic vibrations, aeroelastic interactions and flow-induced instabilities.
This presentation will present recent studies on flow-induced instabilities of the blades. Specifically, the presentation will focus on coupled-mode flutter, which involves the interaction between flap-wise and torsional vibrations of the blade. Blade flutter may lead to malfunctions, damage and, ultimately, failure of the blades. Investigations will analyze various perturbation sources, e.g., wind turbulence, loading errors and blade’s structural modeling simplifications. This issue will also analyze the influence of partially correlated turbulence on the loads and the instability. Both stochastic differential equations and Monte Carlo methods will be considered. Verification by wind tunnel experiments will be presented. Although blade flutter is not important for shorter blades, it will be shown that flutter probability cannot be ignored in the case of long blades, typical of offshore wind turbines. The presentation will consider the behavior of the NREL (National Renewable Energy Laboratory) 5MW standard offshore wind turbine blade under various wind load scenarios.
Speaker’s bio
Luca Caracoglia is a Full Professor in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering of Northeastern University, Boston, Massachusetts, USA. Luca Caracoglia’s research and professional interests are in structural dynamics, random vibrations, fluid-structure interaction of civil engineering structures, nonlinear cable network dynamics, wind engineering, wind energy and wind-based energy harvesting systems. He has been author or co-author of 115+ peer-reviewed journal publications and received the NSF-CAREER Award for young investigators in 2009. He was granted the title of “Fellow ASCE” in 2020 for his career accomplishments. He serves as the President of the American Association for Wind Engineering (AAWE), and he is currently a member of the Executive Board of the Italian National Association for Wind Engineering (ANIV). He also currently serves as Associate Editor for the Journal of Fluids and Structures-Elsevier and the ASCE Journal of Bridge Engineering.
Luca Caracoglia is a Full Professor in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering of Northeastern University, Boston, Massachusetts, USA. Luca Caracoglia’s research and professional interests are in structural dynamics, random vibrations, fluid-structure interaction of civil engineering structures, nonlinear cable network dynamics, wind engineering, wind energy and wind-based energy harvesting systems. He has been author or co-author of 115+ peer-reviewed journal publications and received the NSF-CAREER Award for young investigators in 2009. He was granted the title of “Fellow ASCE” in 2020 for his career accomplishments. He serves as the President of the American Association for Wind Engineering (AAWE), and he is currently a member of the Executive Board of the Italian National Association for Wind Engineering (ANIV). He also currently serves as Associate Editor for the Journal of Fluids and Structures-Elsevier and the ASCE Journal of Bridge Engineering.
