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Search indexed NASA NTRS and DOE OSTI research on propulsion, heat transfer, battery materials and energy systems. Follow report and document links to the original sources.
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The final scientific report for the successful, 2.998MW, 45 Mile Hydroelectric Project (Formerly the 51 Mile Project), in Jefferson County, Oregon.
A two-page fact sheet describing the U.S. Department of Energy's investments in wind power.
The economic development potential from wind power installations has been a driver of public and policy support for the industry at the local and state levels for many years. The possibility for economic development has been particularly salient in rural areas of the country where new investment, earnings growth, and employment opportunities have, in many cases, otherwise trended downward for some time. Despite frequent mention of the economic development potential of wind power projects, however, questions persist on the magnitude, distribution, and durability of these impacts. Of particular concern for rural communities is whether new investment in wind power projects stimulates long-term local economic growth and employment. Questions about the economic development and employment impacts of wind power also persist at the national level. However, such debates tend to be more concerned with potential economic losses associated with displacement of other energy sources or land uses and the macroeconomic effects of policy support for renewable energy and changes in electricity rates that might result from wind energy deployment. The present analysis focuses solely on county-level impacts.
This fact sheet provides an overview of the U.S. Department of Energy's Wind and Water Power Program's wind power research activities.
Abstract not provided.
This fact sheet describes the current state of the offshore wind industry in the United States and the offshore wind research and development activities conducted the the U.S. Department of Energy Wind and Water Power Program.
The Alden turbine was developed through the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE's) former Advanced Hydro Turbine Systems Program (1994-2006) and, more recently, through the Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI) and the DOE's Wind & Water Power Program. The primary goal of the engineering study described here was to provide a commercially competitive turbine design that would yield fish passage survival rates comparable to or better than the survival rates of bypassing or spilling flow. Although the turbine design was performed for site conditions corresponding to 92 ft (28 m) net head and a discharge of 1500 cfs (42.5 cms), the design can be modified for additional sites with differing operating conditions. During the turbine development, design modifications were identified for the spiral case, distributor (stay vanes and wicket gates), runner, and draft tube to improve turbine performance while maintaining features for high fish passage survival. Computational results for pressure change rates and shear within the runner passage were similar in the original and final turbine geometries, while predicted minimum pressures were higher for the final turbine. The final turbine geometry and resulting flow environments are expected to further enhance the fish passage characteristics of the turbine. Computational results for the final design were shown to improve turbine efficiencies by over 6% at the selected operating condition when compared to the original concept. Prior to the release of the hydraulic components for model fabrication, finite element analysis calculations were conducted for the stay vanes, wicket gates, and runner to verify that structural design criteria for stress and deflections were met. A physical model of the turbine was manufactured and tested with data collected for power and efficiency, cavitation limits, runaway speed, axial and radial thrust, pressure pulsations, and wicket gate torque. All parameters were observed to fall within ranges expected for conventional radial flow machines. Based on these measurements, the expected efficiency peak for prototype application is 93.64%. These data were used in the final sizing of the supporting mechanical and balance of plant equipment. The preliminary equipment cost for the design specification is $1450/kW with a total supply schedule of 28 months. This equipment supply includes turbine, generator, unit controls, limited balance of plant equipment, field installation, and commissioning. Based on the selected head and flow design conditions, fish passage survival through the final turbine is estimated to be approximately 98% for 7.9-inch (200-mm) fish, and the predicted survival reaches 100% for fish 3.9 inches (100 mm) and less in length. Note that fish up to 7.9- inches (200 mm) in length make up more than 90% of fish entrained at hydro projects in the United States. Completion of these efforts provides a mechanical and electrical design that can be readily adapted to site-specific conditions with additional engineering development comparable to costs associated with conventional turbine designs.
Wind energy is one of the largest sources of renewable energy in the world. To further reduce the operations and maintenance (O&M) costs of wind farms, it is essential to be able to accurately pinpoint the root causes of different failure modes of interest. An example of such a failure mode that is not yet fully understood is white etching cracks (WEC). This can cause the bearing lifetime to be reduced to 5–10% of its design value. Multiple hypotheses are available in literature concerning its cause. To be able to validate or disprove these hypotheses, it is essential to have historic high-frequency measurement data (e.g., load and vibration levels) available. In time, this will allow linking to the history of the turbine operating data with failure data. This paper discusses the dynamic loading on the turbine during certain events (e.g., emergency stops, run-ups, and during normal operating conditions). By combining the number of specific events that each turbine has seen with the severity of each event, it becomes possible to assess which turbines are most likely to show signs of damage.
Building a New Energy Future with Wind Power (Fact Sheet), Wind and Water Power Program (WWPP)
The Scaled Wind Farm Technology (SWiFT) facility, operated by Sandia National Laboratories for the U.S. Department of Energy's Wind and Water Power Program, is a wind energy research site with multiple wind turbines scaled for the experimental study of wake dynamics, advanced rotor development, turbine control, and advanced sensing for production-scale wind farms. The SWiFT site currently includes three variable-speed, pitch-regulated, three-bladed wind turbines. The six volumes of this manual provide a detailed description of the SWiFT wind turbines, including their operation and user interfaces, electrical and mechanical systems, assembly and commissioning procedures, and safety systems.
Through transformative science and innovation, the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE's) National Wind Technology Center (NWTC) at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory's (NREL's) Flatirons Campus helps lead the way to a sustainable energy future that powers America with significant levels of reliable, low-cost, and accessible wind energy. Since 1976, NREL has provided an ideal environment for the research and development (R&D) of advanced energy technologies through: Wind energy resource assessments, World-class research facilities, High-performance computing and modeling, Data and technology analysis, Manufacturing breakthroughs, Environmental analysis and wildlife conservation efforts, Education and training programs for a future workforce. These activities enable the innovations needed to advance U.S. wind systems, address market and deployment barriers, and drive down the cost of wind energy with more efficient, more reliable, and more predictable wind energy systems. This report provides an overview of the achievements NREL delivered on behalf of DOE's Wind Energy Technologies Office (WETO) and other partners during the first and second quarters of Fiscal Year (FY) 2020.
Offering broad-based technical expertise and world-class capabilities and facilities, NREL leverages these assets to provide the wind industry with a better understanding of fundamental physics, high-performance computing-enabled simulation tools, and the physical validation necessary to significantly lower the cost of wind energy. This report provides an overview of the many achievements NREL delivered on behalf of DOE's Wind Energy Technologies Office (WETO) and other partners during Fiscal Year (FY) 2020.
Core gaps are a common manufacturing defect observed in wind blade composite sandwich constructions, which occur when sheets of core material are not properly butted up against each other in the mold. The aim of this study was to characterize core gaps in composite sandwich constructions at the coupon scale. This was to gain an initial understanding of the defect before developing appropriate methodologies for more complex subcomponents as part of a much broader wind blade structural validation and damage tolerance program. Long beam flexure in 4-point-bending was chosen as the most appropriate loading scenario. Beam specimens were characterized with and without 10 mm core gaps in fiberglass/balsa sandwich beams. The core gaps were characterized with two separate resin systems; a Hexion epoxy and Arkema's Elium resins system (a novel, infusible thermoplastic). Results showed that the Elium beams without the core gaps were had a 15% lower static strength than their epoxy counterparts. The introduction of the core gap to the epoxy beams reduced their static strength by 35%. The Elium beams, however, exhibited negligible strength reductions with the inclusion of the core gap. Overall, this characterization study provided pertinent information with regards to core gaps as a manufacturing defect to allow for continued development of damage tolerance and subcomponent validation methodologies with the inclusion of manufacturing defects.
FAST.Farm is a mid-fidelity engineering tool developed by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory targeted at accurately and efficiently predicting wind turbine power production and structural loading in wind farm settings, including wake interactions between turbines. FAST.Farm is based on several principles of the dynamic wake meandering (DWM) model, but also addresses limitations of previous DWM implementations. Previous FAST.Farm studies have shown the similarities and differences between FAST.Farm and large eddy simulations for rigid turbine cases. The objective of this work is to quantify the ability of FAST.Farm to accurately predict turbine structural response in a small wind farm. This is done by comparing FAST.Farm structural response to SOWFA-OpenFAST results for three laterally-aligned turbines. The purpose of this study is to characterize the similarities and differences between FAST.Farm and a higher fidelity model for predicting turbine structural response in a wind farm for differing atmospheric inflows. Strong statistical agreement was found between FAST.Farm and SOWFA-OpenFAST structural response for the non-waked upstream turbine, and good agreement was found for the downstream turbines for most structural quantities. Higher differences were seen for downstream turbines with low ambient turbulence intensity or yawed turbines, suggesting areas for FAST.Farm wake dynamics modeling improvements. For all cases and turbines, small statistical differences were seen between blade deflections and bending moments, with larger differences for tower-top and tower-base bending moments. Overall, the results establish confidence for applying FAST.Farm to wind farm power and loads analyses and identify areas where further model validations and model improvements should be targeted.
A fully open-source available framework for the parametric cross-sectional analysis and design optimization of slender composite structures, such as helicopter or wind turbine blades, is presented. The framework—Structural Optimization and Aeroelastic Analysis (SONATA)—incorporates two structural solvers, the commercial tool VABS, and the novel open-source code ANBA4. SONATA also parameterizes the design inputs, postprocesses and visualizes the results, and generates the structural inputs to a variety of aeroelastic analysis tools. It is linked to the optimization library OpenMDAO. This work presents the methodology and explains the fundamental approaches of SONATA. Structural characteristics were successfully verified for both VABS and ANBA4 using box beam examples from literature, thereby verifying the parametric approach to generating the topology and mesh in a cross section as well as the solver integration. The framework was furthermore exercised by analyzing and evaluating a fully resolved highly flexible wind turbine blade. Computed structural characteristics correlated between VABS and ANBA4, including off-diagonal terms. Stresses, strains, and deformations were recovered from loads derived through coupling with aeroelastic analysis. The framework, therefore, proves effective in accurately analyzing and optimizing slender composite structures on a high-fidelity level that is close to a three-dimensional finite element model.
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