SBIR Phase I: Novel Plasma Actuator for Improved Wind Turbine Performance

该项目更广泛的影响/商业潜力是降低可再生能源的成本。在过去的几十年里，风能成本的急剧下降是由不断增加的涡轮机尺寸以及新的制造方法和材料的引入推动的。然而，由于不稳定的空气动力导致涡轮叶片和传动系的磨损增加，该行业正在接近这一趋势的极限。涡轮机制造商一直在研究和测试各种减轻非定常气动载荷的方法，包括独立的叶片螺距控制、后缘襟翼、微翼片、边界层吹气和机械凸度控制。这些潜在的解决方案中的每一个都是昂贵、复杂的，并且需要移动部件。因此，没有一家公司超过了原型阶段。基于等离子体执行器的新的主动负载控制系统具有超越所有其他解决方案的潜力。这个小型企业创新研究(SBIR)第一阶段项目将展示通过安装在叶片上的等离子致动器控制叶片周围的气流来对抗公用事业规模风力涡轮机中非定常空气动力的可行性。这种全电子流量控制装置将减轻空气动力负荷，并使更大、更高效和更耐用的涡轮机得以部署。利用最近等离子体执行器技术的改进，推力增加了十倍，而功耗只有十分之一，将设计、制造和测试一种新的创新执行器，其性能将比当前技术水平提高2-4倍。这一水平的性能将足以对抗叶片尖端速度高达200英里/小时的大型风力涡轮机中的非定常空气动力。

The broader impact/commercial potential of this project is the reduction in the cost of renewable energy. The dramatic decline in the cost of wind energy over the last several decades has been fueled by the ever increasing turbine size and the introduction of new manufacturing methods and materials. However, the industry is approaching the limits of this trend due to the increased wear and tear of the turbine blades and drive train, caused by unsteady aerodynamic forces. Turbine manufacturers have been studying and testing various approaches to mitigate unsteady aerodynamic loads, including independent blade pitch control, trailing edge flaps, microtabs, boundary layer blowing, and mechanical camber control. Each of these potential solutions is costly, complex, and requires moving parts. As a result, none has moved beyond the prototype stage. The new active load-control system, based on plasma actuators, has the potential to leap-frog all other solutions. This Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase I project will demonstrate the feasibility of countering unsteady aerodynamic forces in utility-scale wind turbines by controlling the air flow around the blades with blade-mounted plasma actuators. This fully electronic flow control device will mitigate aerodynamic loads and enable the deployment of larger, more efficient and more durable turbines. Leveraging recent improvement in plasma actuator technology, with a ten-fold increase in thrust, and with one-tenth of the power consumption, a new innovative actuator will be designed, built and tested with 2-4X performance improvement over the current state of the art. This level of performance will be sufficient to counter unsteady aerodynamic forces in large wind turbines with blade tip speeds of up to 200 miles/hour.