Active flow modifications on wind turbine blades
AssigneeGeneral Electric Company
InventorsSeyed Saddoughi, Anurag Gupta, Philippe Giguere
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
A wind turbine blade is situated on a wind turbine and includes a side and a tip. The blade is configured to rotate about an axis upon an impact of a wind flow on the blade. An active flow modification device is disposed on the blade. The active flow modification device is configured to receive active flow instructions and to modify the wind flow proximate to the blade. The resulting wind turbine blade uses these active flow modifications to achieve reduced loads, reduced aerodynamic losses, reduced noise, enhanced energy capture, or combinations thereof.
Claims35
A wind turbine comprising:
- a wind turbine blade situated on the wind turbine comprising a side and a tip, the blade being configured to rotate about an axis upon an impact of a wind flow on the blade;
- and
- an active flow modification device disposed on the blade, the active flow modification device configured to modify the wind flow proximate to the blade, and wherein the active flow modification device is configured to receive active flow instructions.
A method of operating a wind turbine comprising a blade rotable about an axis upon an impact of a wind flow on the blade, the method comprising:
- obtaining a current state of at least one operating condition of the wind turbine;
- and
- actively modifying the wind flow proximate to the blade in response to the current state of the at least one operating condition.
A wind turbine blade assembly comprising:
- a wind turbine blade comprising a side and a tip, the blade being configured to rotate about an axis upon an impact of a wind flow on the blade;
- and
- an active flow modification device comprising a dual bimorph synthetic jet device and disposed on the blade, the active flow modification device configured to modify the wind flow proximate to the blade, and wherein the active flow modification device is configured to receive active flow instructions.
A wind turbine blade design comprising the use of active flow modification devices on a side of the wind turbine blade to reduce loads and enable a larger size of the wind turbine blade than would be within operating specifications without the active flow modification devices.
A wind turbine blade design comprising the use of active flow modification devices on a tip of the wind turbine blade to have lower aerodynamic losses and noise than would be within operating specifications without the active flow modification devices.
A wind turbine blade design comprising the use of active flow modification devices on a side of the wind turbine blade to reduce the undesired loadings caused by changing wind conditions.
A wind turbine blade design comprising the use of active flow modification devices on a side of the wind turbine blade to regulate the changes in lift production and resultant power output caused by changing wind conditions.
A wind turbine blade design comprising the use of blade and airfoil shapes that are optimized to provide higher aerodynamic performance and efficiency and rely on active flow modification for flow separation control of the wind flow proximate to the blade, wherein the shapes include shapes beyond those otherwise useable in wind turbines without active flow modification.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.