Inflow Parameter Effects on Wind Turbine Tower Cyclic Loading. Issue 5 (October 2014)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Smith, Jamie C.; Carriveau, Rupp; Ting, David S-K
• Is Part Of: Wind engineering. Volume 38:Issue 5(2014)
• Page Start: 477
• Page End: 488
• Publication Date: 2014-10
• Subjects: Wind-pressure -- Periodicals; Winds -- Periodicals; Wind power -- Periodicals; Engineering meteorology -- Periodicals; Pression du vent; Vents; Énergie éolienne; Météorologie appliquée; Engineering meteorology; Wind power; Wind-pressure; Winds; Periodicals; 621.4505
• DOI: 10.1260/0309-524X.38.5.477
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0309-524X

Abstract

Wind turbine towers are fatigue-critical structures subjected to a variety of atmospheric wind regimes at onshore installations. At a commercial wind farm in Southwestern Ontario, the structural steel supporting tower of a multi-megawatt horizontal-axis turbine has been instrumented with a fiber Bragg grating strain gauge array. A nearby meteorological mast allows wind conditions to be classified on the basis of horizontal turbulence intensity and vertical wind shear. Data has been collected over a measurement campaign spanning multiple months, and a sample of the tower's cyclic loading history has been compiled. Comparisons are drawn between accumulated hourly loading cycle spectra for operation across different upwind inflow parameters.