Juan Carlos Jauregui-Correa
Francisco Herbert
Krystel Castillo
The purpose of the present document is to describe a design proposal for a flexible blade that can adapt the aerodynamic profile and fulfill the “Shape-Morphing concept.” The design is based on a previous analysis of the displacements that a specific profile follows during the conformation of different aerodynamic profiles. The presented concept design assumes that the length of the profiles remains constant; therefore, the dimension of the cord changes from one configuration to the other. The mechanism deforms the profile in a way that it assures a continuous path aerodynamic forms. The proposed design results from the analysis of the trajectories that a NACA type profile describes when it is deformed from an original shape to another NACA profile. A set of different paths within the same NACA family was the reference for the analysis, but the mechanism can be applied to a wide variety of NACA families.
The development of shape-morphing mechanisms is an alternative solution for wind turbine controllers. The primary purpose of these controllers is to compensate wind velocity variations for regulating the electric generator velocity and the loads on the blade. Some studies have proposed the development of flow control methods, where the power regulation and aerodynamic loads are involved. The future of these technologies is related to reliable designs of safe and economical blades, plus control systems that must ensure fully automatic operations.
The design of the control mechanism solves one of the limitations of many of the existing "shape-morphing" solutions. The solution is based on integrating a cam system along the entire blade and take advantage of the elastic properties of flexible sandwich materials.
The design has been tested both at the laboratory and at an experimental wind farm.
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