Global Centers Track 2: Enhanced Wind Turbine Blade Durability

风力涡轮机从风中提取动能并将其转化为电能。风能的动能足以满足世界上所有的电力需求。在不到一年的时间里，风力涡轮机产生的电力已经超过了其制造和部署的用电量。由于这些原因，风能正在为绿色能源革命做出越来越重要的贡献。风力涡轮机叶片是精心设计的空气动力学性能，以最大限度地提高发电量。然而，风力涡轮机在其25到30年的使用寿命期间也会经历非常恶劣的条件，这可能导致叶片损坏。这种材料损失和叶片的粗化被称为前缘侵蚀（LEE）。它降低了空气动力学性能，可能需要维修或更换，这既降低了可靠性，又增加了能源成本。这个全球中心轨道2设计奖的目标是降低风力发电的能源成本，提高风力涡轮机的可靠性。解决这个问题需要一个连贯的多学科方法，正如这里所应用的。这项nsf全球中心倡议吸引了来自美国（康奈尔大学）、英国（兰开斯特大学）、加拿大（加拿大风能研究所）、挪威（卑尔根大学）、丹麦（丹麦和奥斯特技术大学）和西班牙（西班牙国家可再生能源中心）的学术界和实践者的合作伙伴。国际团队将共同制定一项战略，以减少风力涡轮机部署或将要部署的不同地点的LEE预测中的主要不确定性来源，并提高叶片的耐用性。降低LEE是全球风力涡轮机制造商和风力发电场所有者运营商的首要任务，并将提高发电量。该项目的技术目标是：(i)改进对LEE的预测并优化施工前模型模拟的减排策略。（ii）提出新的检测方法，优化维修调度。（iii）通过材料科学的进步来降低LEE，以减少损害。（iv）通过改进对高破坏性事件的预测/观测检测来减少损害，从而使风电场动态运行以减少LEE。项目愿景是围绕系统方法建立的，并将在4个相互关联的主题中解决：主题1。大气驱动，主题2。损伤检测与量化，主题3。材料响应和重新设计，主题4。LEE的空气动力学意义。在这个计划阶段，研究人员将执行一系列现象识别和排名表（PIRT）分析，并推进解决LEE所需的基础科学和工程知识。结果将是端到端过程级评估，研究优先级以及构建多尺度跨学科模型链的强大模型验证和验证（V&amp；V）框架，以生成地理分散地点的LEE潜力的先验估计。该工具将为前沿保护要求和/或其他缓解措施的评估提供信息。该奖项由全球中心项目资助，该项目是一个创新项目，支持以使用为灵感的研究，解决与气候变化和/或清洁能源相关的全球挑战。Track 2设计奖支持美国的研究人员将国际团队聚集在一起，开发研究问题和合作伙伴关系，进行景观分析，综合数据，和/或建立多方利益相关者网络，以推进他们未来更大规模的使用灵感研究。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

Wind turbines extract kinetic energy from the wind and convert it into electricity. The kinetic energy content of the wind is sufficient to supply all of the world’s electricity needs. Within less than a year of manufacture wind turbines have generated more electricity than is used in their manufacture and deployment. For these reasons wind energy is making an increasingly important contribution to the green energy revolution. Wind turbine blades are carefully designed for aerodynamic performance to maximize the amount of electricity generated. However, wind turbines also experience very harsh conditions during their 25-to-30-year operating lifetimes that can lead to blade damage. This material loss and roughening of the blades is called leading edge erosion (LEE). It decreases aerodynamic performance and may require repair or replacement which both decreases reliability and increases the cost of energy. The goal of this Global Centers Track 2 Design award is to reduce the cost of energy for wind-generated electricity and enhance the reliability of wind turbines. Addressing this topic requires a coherent multi-disciplinary approach as applied here. This NSF-Global Centers initiative draws partners from academia and practitioners in the US (Cornell University), the UK (University of Lancaster), Canada (Wind Energy Institute of Canada), Norway (University of Bergen), Denmark (Technical University of Denmark and Orsted) and Spain (National Renewable Energy Center of Spain). Together the international team will develop a strategy to reduce key sources of uncertainty in LEE projections from different locations in which wind turbines are, or will be, deployed and to enhance blade durability. Reducing LEE is a priority for global wind turbine manufacturers and wind farm owner operators and would improve energy generation. Technical goals of the project are: (i) Improve forecasting of LEE and optimize abatement strategies for pre-construction model simulations. (ii) Advance new detection methods to optimize repair scheduling. (iii) Reduce LEE through materials science advances to reduce damage. (iv) Reduce damage by improved forecasting/observational detection of highly damaging events to enable dynamic operation of wind farms to reduce LEE. The project vision is built around a systems approach and will be addressed within 4-interlinked themes: Theme 1. Atmospheric drivers, Theme 2. Damage detection and quantification, Theme 3. Materials response and redesign, and Theme 4. Aerodynamic implications of LEE. In this planning phase project, the researchers will perform a series of Phenomena Identification and Ranking Tables (PIRT) analyses, and advance fundamental science and engineering knowledge necessary to address LEE. The result will be an end-to-end process-level assessment, research prioritization plus a robust model verification and validation (V&V) framework for constructing a multi-scale inter-disciplinary model chain to generate a priori estimates of LEE potential at geographically dispersed sites. This tool will inform assessments of leading-edge protection requirements and/or other mitigation actions. This award is funded by the Global Centers program, an innovative program that supports use-inspired research addressing global challenges related to climate change and/or clean energy. Track 2 design awards support U.S.-based researchers to bring together international teams to develop research questions and partnerships, conduct landscape analyses, synthesize data, and/or build multi-stakeholder networks to advance their use-inspired research at larger scale in the future.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.