ANKARA UNIVERSITY
DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY ENGINEERING
WIND POWER SYSTEMS
INSTRUCTOR
DR. ÖZGÜR SELİMOĞLU
CONTENTS
a. System Components: Tower, Turbine, Blades
b. System Design Features
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SYSTEM COMPONENTS
The total system consists of the wind turbine and load. A typical wind turbine consists of the rotor (blades and hub),
speed increaser (gearbox), conversion system, controls, and tower.
The nacelle is the covering or enclosure. The output of the rotor, rotational kinetic energy, can be converted to
electrical, mechanical, or thermal energy. Generally, it is electrical energy, so the conversion system is a generator.
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Electric motors are used to rotate, change the pitch of the blades. All blades must have the same pitch for all
operational conditions.
Most direct current (DC) generators and permanent magnet alternators on small wind turbines do not have a
speed increaser. One type of large wind turbine has no gearbox, which means it has very large generators.
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Principal components of most wind energy conversion systems
The tower of a wind turbine serves to elevate the main part of the machine up into the air. For a horizontal axis
machine the tower must be at least high enough to keep the blade tips from touching the ground as they rotate. In
practice, towers are usually much higher than that. Winds are nearly always much stronger as elevation above
ground increases, and they are less turbulent.
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The vast majority of wind turbine towers are constructed from steel. Concrete towers are a
perfectly practicable alternative but, except at the smaller sizes, they require the transfer of a
substantial element of work from the factory to the turbine
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Guyed Pole Tower Concrete Tower
Tubular Steel Towers
Lattice Tower
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Wind turbines for generating electricity are known and are being deployed in increasing numbers to
provide a sustainable electricity supply.The maximum power which a wind türbine can generate is
proportional to the swept area of its blades.
There is desire to increase the size of wind türbines so as to increase the maximum power.
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Small Wind Turbines
Local electrical grids may not be able to handle
the large electrical output from a large turbine,
so smaller turbines may be more suitable.
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Large Wind Turbines
Able to deliver electricity at lower cost than smaller
turbines, because foundation costs, planning costs, etc.
are independent of size.
In areas where it is difficult to find sites,
one large turbine on a tall tower uses the
wind extremely efficiently.
Well-suited for offshore wind plants.
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For years, small wind turbines blades were made of wood, carved from a single piece or from a wood block glued
together from several pieces. The material properties of wood are good: strength, flexibility, and resistance to fatigue.
Machines could carve up to four blades from a master blade. However, for large blades, solid wood was not acceptable,
as the weight became too large.
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Wind turbine blades have been made from a number of materials: aluminum cover, fabric cover,
or metal cover on rib and spar (like an airplane wing); a sail wing, which is fabric attached to a
leading edge spar; laminated wood composite (shell); fiberglass-reinforced plastics (FRPs),
also carbon fibers.
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Form Of Blade Structure
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SYSTEM DESİGN FEATURES
Wind turbine design involves a great many consideration. The process of designing a wind turbine involves the
conceptual assembling of a large number of mechanical and electrical components into a machine which can convert the
varying power in the wind into a useful form.
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• Winds are influenced by the ground surface at altitudes up to
100 meters.
• Wind is slowed by the surface roughness and obstacles.
• When dealing with wind energy, we are concerned with surface
winds.
• A wind turbine obtains its power input by converting the force of
the wind into a torque (turning force) acting on the rotor blades.
• The amount of energy which the wind transfers to the rotor depends
on the density of the air, the rotor area, and the wind speed.
• The kinetic energy of a moving body is proportional to its mass (or
weight). The kinetic energy in the wind thus depends on the density
of the air, its mass per unit of volume.
Design Procedure
There are a number of approaches that can be taken towards wind turbine design, and there are many issues that must be
considered. This section outlines the steps in one approach. The following sections provide more details on those steps. The key
design steps include the following:
1) Determine application
2) Review previous experience
3) Select topology
4) Preliminary loads estimate
5) Develop tentative design
6) Predict performance
7) Evaluate design
8) Estimate costs and cost of energy
9) Refine design
10) Build prototype
11) Test prototype
12) Design production machine
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The first step in designing a wind turbine is to determine the application. Wind turbines for
producing bulk power for supply to large utility networks, for example, will have a different design
than will turbines intended for operation in remote communities.
The application will be a major factor in choosing the size of the turbine, the type of generator it
has, the method of control, and how it is to be installed and operated. For example, wind turbines
for utility power will tend to be as large as practical. At the present time, such turbines have power
ratings in the range of 500 to 1500 kW, with rotor diameters in the range of 38 m (125 ft) to 61 m
(200 ft). Such machines are often installed in clusters or wind farms, and may be able to utilize
fairly developed infrastructure for installation, operation and maintenance.
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TOPOLOGY
There are a wide variety of possible overall layouts or ‘topologies’ for a wind turbine. Most of these relate to the rotor.
The most important choices are listed below:
Rotor axis orientation: horizontal or vertical
Power control: stall, variable pitch, controllable aerodynamic surfaces and yaw control
Rotor position: upwind of tower or downwind of tower
Yaw control: driven yaw, free yaw or fixed yaw
Rotor speed: constant or variable
Design tip speed ratio and solidity
Type of hub: rigid, teetering, hinged blades or gimballed
Number of blades
Early in the design process it is necessary to make a preliminary estimate of the loads that the turbine must be able to
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Aerodynamic Design
The aerodynamic design encompasses the selection of aerofoil family and optimization of the chord and twist
distributions. The variation of thickness to chord ratio along the blade also has to be considered, but this ratio is usually
set at the minimum value permitted by structural design considerations, as this minimizes drag losses.
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The moving blades of the wind turbine convert part of the power in the wind to rotational
power
P =T. w (Torque )
v = w.r (Linear velocity of the tip of the blade)
where T is the torque (N–m) and w (rad/s) is the angular velocity. The same power can be transferred
with a large T and small w, or a small T and large -w . The torque–w characteristics of the rotor should
be matched to the torque- w characteristics of the load
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Blade Number
The number of rotor blades a wind turbine design has is generally determined by the aerodynamic efficiency and cost.
The ideal wind turbine would have many thin rotor blades but most horizontal axis wind turbine generators have only
one, two or three rotor blades. Increasing the number of rotor blades above three gives only a small increase in rotor
efficiency but increases its cost, so more than three blades are usually not required.
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YAW SYSTEM
The yaw drive is the name given to the mechanism used to rotate the nacelle with respect to the tower on its
slewing bearing, in order to keep the turbine facing into the wind and to unwind the power and other cables when
they become excessively twisted. 30
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REFERENCES
Assmann, D., Laumanns, U., & Uh, D. (Eds.). (2006). Renewable energy: a global review of technologies, policies and
markets. Routledge.
Burton, T. (2001). Sharpe, David. Jenkins, Nick. Bossanyi, Ervin. Wind Energy Handbook, Wiley: New York.
Ehrlich, R., & Geller, H. A. (2017). Renewable energy: a first course. CRC Press.
Manwell, J. F., McGowan, J. G., & Rogers, A. L. (2010). Wind energy explained: theory, design and application. John
Wiley & Sons.
Nelson, V. (2013). Wind energy: renewable energy and the environment. CRC press.
Twidell, J., & Weir, T. (2015). Renewable energy resources. Routledge.
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