Modeling, Analysis, and Diagnostics of High Strength-to-Weight Wind Turbine Blades Using Tensegrity Principles

在全球范围内获得负担得起、可靠和可持续的能源是联合国2030年目标之一。这需要大幅增加可再生能源在全球能源结构中的份额。如果世界要实现这一目标，风能是解决方案的重要组成部分。为了实现2030年的目标，该行业正在向可以部署更大风力涡轮机的海上地点转移。随着转子变大，叶片变长，这带来了一些挑战。该行业一直依赖于叶片结构设计、制造工艺和材料性能的改进，以满足对更长的叶片的要求，同时保持轻质、强韧和刚性。目前，材料性能标准确定纤维增强聚合物复合材料是旋翼叶片的主要候选材料。然而，这种材料的使用在设计分析、制造、振动控制、结构健康评估和运输方面提出了一些挑战。在这项工作中，研究人员将开发新的理论和计算工具，用于使用张拉整体原理设计大型涡轮叶片，这将大大减轻上述一些工程挑战。预计所提出的设计框架将具有颠覆性，并导致下一代风力涡轮机叶片的更高效设计。基于张拉整体的风力涡轮机叶片设计有几个优点，包括精确的建模、气动弹性剪裁、结构健康监测的最佳传感，以及能够收缩到更小的尺寸，便于部署。拟议的研究将缓解风能界面临的一些紧迫的技术和科学挑战，并为解决从2012年的5吉瓦到2030年的150吉瓦的拟议扩张提供一条可行的途径。本研究所要解决的科学问题也呈现了一个新的系统工程视角，这是目前工程实践中所缺失的。每个组件技术（基于物理/数据的建模、传感、驱动、控制、计算）的最新技术都相当成熟。然而，缺少系统视角。通常，这些系统首先被构建和建模，传感和驱动架构（包括精度）以一种特殊的方式确定，然后设计受这种特殊传感和控制架构约束的估计/控制律。在这项工作中，我们寻求一种集成的方法来设计结构（质量特性、拓扑、动力学）和传感体系结构（用于最佳健康监测），这提供了一个具有强大理论基础的新视角。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。

Access to affordable, reliable, and sustainable energy across the globe is one of the 2030 targets of the United Nations. This requires a substantial increase in the share of renewable energy within the global energy mix. Wind is a prominent part of the solution if the world is to achieve such a target. To meet the 2030 target, the industry is moving to off-shore sites where larger wind-turbines can be deployed. As the rotors become larger, the blades become longer which poses some challenges. The industry has relied on improvements in blade structural design, manufacturing processes and material properties to meet the requirements for longer blades that remain light-weight, strong and stiff. Currently, material performance criteria identify fiber-reinforced polymer composites as the prime candidate for rotor blades. However, use of such material presents several challenges in design analysis, manufacturing, vibration control, structural health assessment, and transportation. In this effort, the investigators will develop new theoretical and computational tools for designing large turbine blades using tensegrity principles, which will significantly alleviate some of the above described engineering challenges. It is expected that the proposed design framework will be disruptive and lead to much more efficient design of next generation wind-turbine blades. The tensegrity-based design of wind-turbine blades has several advantages including accurate modeling, aero-elastic tailoring, optimal sensing for structural health monitoring, and ability to contract to a smaller form factor for easy deployability. The proposed research will alleviate some of the pressing technical and scientific challenges in the wind energy community, and provide a feasible path to address the proposed expansion from 5 GW in 2012 to 150 GW in 2030. The scientific problems that will be addressed in this research also present a new systems engineering perspective, which is missing in current engineering practices. The state-of-the-art in each component technology (physics/data based modeling, sensing, actuation, control, computation) is quite matured. However, a systems perspective is missing. Typically these systems are first built and modeled, sensing and actuation architecture (including precision) is decided in an adhoc manner, followed by the design of the estimation/control law that is constrained by this adhoc sensing and control architecture. In this effort, we pursue an integrated approach for design of the structure (mass properties, topology, dynamics), and the sensing architecture (for optimal health monitoring), which provides a new perspective with strong theoretical foundations.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.