Remote triggered wind turbine dynamometer

Abstract

Access to wind turbine dynamometers to learn turbine design in a wind energy laboratory course are rare for students pursuing undergraduate education in engineering or energy studies due to the expensive infrastructure associated with them. Usually, the studies of such systems are limited to simulations owing to the hardships in setting up the hardware. Virtual laboratories have shown immense impact in filling this gap of infrastructure availability by using technologies to simulate and/or remotely connect to real equipment for educational purposes. This work describes the design and implementation of a remote triggered wind turbine dynamometer experiment that will allow students to operate the instrumentation remotely to study the effect of load variations in turbines with different blade configurations at different wind speeds. The impact of blade configurations and wind speeds on load variations in turbines are key learning outcomes designed within the experiments associated to the dynamometer. Data representing torque, power and efficiency characteristics of a wind turbine are detailed in this work. Specific advantages of this design include multi-variable characterization without having to change the physical design by forecasting the running conditions for different blade parameters and tuning the load.