Abstract
One way to achieve increased wind capacity is by installing larger and more efficient wind turbines, which results in larger/heavier generators. Direct-drive, permanent magnet generators are favoured due to their increased efficiency, but the added weight is an issue, as this drives up the cost of the nacelle and turbine support structure, along with increasing the manufacturing and installation costs. Therefore, minimizing the mass, particularly the structural mass, of these low speed generators is becoming much more important. A vast amount of research has been done on trying to reduce the electromagnetically ‘active’ materials, but it is the supporting structure or ‘inactive’ materials, that makes up the biggest percentage of the generator’s mass. Therefore, this paper studies the statics and dynamics of a large offshore direct-drive generator’s supporting structure and the opportunities for light-weighting, as well as improvements to the generator’s rotor structure through structural optimisation. The indicator for optimised design is system weight under each predefined scenario. These scenarios will cover different design considerations of the generator’s rotor structure.
Highlights
An increasing amount of attention is shifting towards the use of renewable resources for energy production and supply, in order to reduce carbon dioxide emissions
This paper looks at a specific machine, the NREL 15MW reference wind turbine [4] and investigates the structural mass optimisation of the rotor’s supporting structure, in order to reduce the total mass of the generator and improve the overall design
In this piece of research, the NREL 15MW generator rotor structure has been optimised taking into consideration static and dynamic features
Summary
An increasing amount of attention is shifting towards the use of renewable resources for energy production and supply, in order to reduce carbon dioxide emissions. In the first quarter of 2020, the International Energy Agency (IEA) [1] states that the global use of renewable energy increased by 1.5% on the previous year. One reason for this increase was due to the completion of 60GW of wind projects in 2019. The IEA states that during the recent COVID-19 pandemic, the global energy demand fell by 3.8%, demand for renewables, including wind, grew due to the larger installed capacity and the fact that their output is mainly unaffected by demand, whereas demand for all other energy sources fell. One way to achieve this requirement is to install larger wind turbines.
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