SBIR Phase I: Novel Plasma Actuator for Improved Wind Turbine Performance

SBIR 第一阶段：用于提高风力涡轮机性能的新型等离子体致动器

• 批准号: 1647597
• 负责人: Neal Fine
• 金额: $ 22.5万
• 依托单位: ARCTURA, INC.
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2016
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2016-12-15 至 2017-11-30
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1647597&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: SBIR; Phase; Novel; Plasma; Actuator

The broader impact/commercial potential of this project is the reduction in the cost of renewable energy. The dramatic decline in the cost of wind energy over the last several decades has been fueled by the ever increasing turbine size and the introduction of new manufacturing methods and materials. However, the industry is approaching the limits of this trend due to the increased wear and tear of the turbine blades and drive train, caused by unsteady aerodynamic forces. Turbine manufacturers have been studying and testing various approaches to mitigate unsteady aerodynamic loads, including independent blade pitch control, trailing edge flaps, microtabs, boundary layer blowing, and mechanical camber control. Each of these potential solutions is costly, complex, and requires moving parts. As a result, none has moved beyond the prototype stage. The new active load-control system, based on plasma actuators, has the potential to leap-frog all other solutions. This Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase I project will demonstrate the feasibility of countering unsteady aerodynamic forces in utility-scale wind turbines by controlling the air flow around the blades with blade-mounted plasma actuators. This fully electronic flow control device will mitigate aerodynamic loads and enable the deployment of larger, more efficient and more durable turbines. Leveraging recent improvement in plasma actuator technology, with a ten-fold increase in thrust, and with one-tenth of the power consumption, a new innovative actuator will be designed, built and tested with 2-4X performance improvement over the current state of the art. This level of performance will be sufficient to counter unsteady aerodynamic forces in large wind turbines with blade tip speeds of up to 200 miles/hour.

该项目的更广泛的影响/商业潜力是降低可再生能源的成本。在过去的几十年中，风能成本的急剧下降是由于涡轮机尺寸的不断增加以及新的制造方法和材料的引入所推动的。但是，由于涡轮叶片和驱动火车的磨损增加，该行业正在接近这一趋势的局限性，这是由不稳定的空气动力力量引起的。涡轮制造商一直在研究和测试各种方法，以减轻不稳定的空气动力学负载，包括独立的刀片俯仰控制，后缘边缘襟翼，微杆菌，边界层吹动和机械室内控制。这些潜在的解决方案中的每一个都是昂贵，复杂的，并且需要活动部件。结果，没有一个超越原型阶段。基于等离子体执行器的新的主动负载控制系统有可能跳过所有其他解决方案。这项小型企业创新研究（SBIR）I阶段项目将证明，通过使用刀片安装的等离子执行器来控制叶片周围的空气流，以抵抗公用事业尺度风力涡轮机中不稳定的空气动力。这种完全电子流控制装置将减轻空气动力载荷，并使更大，更高效，更耐用的涡轮机部署。利用最近提高血浆执行器技术的进步，推力增加了十倍，并且有十分之一的功耗，将设计，构建和测试新的创新执行器，并以2-4倍的性能提高到目前的状态2-4倍艺术。这种高度的性能足以应对大型风力涡轮机中不稳定的空气动力，其刀片尖端速度高达200英里/小时。