Notes - Wind Turbine ISR-G

by Leon Santen

These are notes for my wind turbine independent study with Jeff Dusek.

9/24/2020

F_wind = 1/2 * p * v^2 * A; (p-density of air, v-wind speed)
solar panel dimension - 62.2 x 31.8 x 1.4 inches - 1.58m x 0.8m x 0.0355; area = 1.264 m^2

two challanges: low noise to signal ratio, need to measure volume not single point
LIDAR & SODAR Doppler shift measuring; LIDAR measurements are more precise

Navier-Stokes equation (evolution equation) to calculate wind speeds in space
statistical analysis, spectra, turbulence intensity is obtained by mean wind speed and standard deviation of wind speeds
every wavelength (after Fourier transform) can be thought of as a length scale
wind vector (u, v, w)
integral length scale; from time series, we compute the auto-correlation function
turbulence spectra
averaging periods of 10 min are commonly used; 30 min period for turbulence studies; the larger integral time scale, the larger should be averaging period; sampling frequencies should be much smaller than integral time scale
you have to detrend te time series to get rid of high-frequency fluctuation

What I did:

I measured wind speeds throughout the week. At a height of 4 m, the wind speeds vary around 0-4 mph. We had gust of up to 10-15 mph. However, wind speeds seem to be quite low. From talking to a nearby farmer I learned that wind speeds increase during the months November - January.
I completed the first two weeks on Coursera, but I didn't take the quizzes due to limited time
We have been working on a mount for the five solar panels. We will most likely build a solar-sail that rotates around its middle axis. Its angle of rotation can be manually adjusted for winter and summer times. We will have to dig at least four post holes to keep the construction sturdy during heavy storms.
the surface roughness is important for wind energy estimations
surface roughness is hard to determine

To Do:

orientation of the turbine
mount anemometer higher up in the trees
look into turbine tree mounting techniques
interview farmer Ann again
finish week three and take week 2 quizzes
work when it doesn't rain
what's the surface roughness here at the farm?
find possible turbine spots
research boundary layers and atmospheric stability correction
look into calculating the lift of solar panels (flat plate approximation - coefficient for lift and drag)
reading on the efficiency of vertical turbines vs conventional turbines

we have a hight surface roughness probably around z_0=0.4 (wind profiles)
Eddies are swirls of a fluid and it's reverse current in a turbulent flow regime (Wikipedia)

Wind Resource Assessment

due to roughness of the forest, wind speed increases
The Wind Atlas Analysis And Application Program (WAsP) provides an upward and downard analysis of the terrain
on top of hills, we have over speeding due to continuity
What is Weibull distribution?

site assessment - take photography and topography

data collection with raspi anemometer

hard part: is there enough detail in the Coursera course?

deliverables: structural design of design the tower, beam bending, blade design --> lifting line theory

model for the amount of power --> modeling in Simulink --> amount of wind, size of turbine...

Grade? --> a few deliverables: weekly journal entry/blog, Coursera quizzes (weekly entry), site assessment, modeling,

Get started: Coursera, as you work trough (document built-in quizzes) Do Simulink onramp

To-do for next week:

Write up ISR-G application
First week or two of Coursera course, wind resources, tests, and measurement part
Personal notes in a google doc, final Report - technical report in latex, final deliverable that is more public-facing