Wind Energy
Instrumentation is needed to explore and to monitor the flow over the blades of wind turbines in both the laboratory and the open field. As in many other applications, Aeroprobe products are perfectly suited for scaled-down investigations, as well as for the flow measurements over full-scale wind turbines. Applications of Aeroprobe products and their use in the laboratory have been described in other pages of this Web site. In full-scale wind-turbine investigations, the flow over the rotating blades can be explored by mounting probes right on the rotating blades, or by placing probes on fixed stands upstream or downstream of the turbine. Aeroprobe probes can also be used to explore wind conditions over geographical areas and indicate the suitability for the construction of wind farms.
For full-scale wind turbines two main probe components are recommended: The five-hole air-data probes, typically installed on the leading edge (LE) of the blade to measure the inflow speed and direction, and the Pitot-static probe rakes, mounted near the trailing edge (TE) of the blades in order to measure the thickness and velocity profile of the boundary layer. By measuring the probe port pressures with pressure scanners, and applying the probe and sensor calibrations, the flow speed and angles may be calculated. The LE probes are essentially air-data probes, equipped with static rings to measure the local static pressure, which is necessary to allow the calculation of the magnitude of the local velocity.
Aeroprobe products have been used by companies including Sandia, GE, Vestas and Siemens; government labs including DOE’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), and others. Examples of such use can be found by clicking on the icons to the right.
