SWPTC - Swedish Wind Power Technology Centre

<ul>
<li><a href="/en/departments/e2/resources-and-collaboration/centres-and-research-facilities/swptc-swedish-wind-power-technology-centre/research/?culture=en" title="Research" data-anchor="?culture=en">Read more about our research here</a></li>
<li><a href="/en/departments/e2/resources-and-collaboration/centres-and-research-facilities/swptc-swedish-wind-power-technology-centre/reports-and-previous-projects/" title="Reports and previous projects">Here you find our reports and previous projects</a></li>
<li><a href="/en/departments/e2/resources-and-collaboration/centres-and-research-facilities/swptc-swedish-wind-power-technology-centre/wind-power-research-in-focus/" title="Wind power research in focus">Wind power research in foucs </a></li>
</ul>

​The project serves to combine the gathering of information from accumulated condition monitoring signals – such as SCADA data – and weather data, with mathematical optimization models, in order to fast and accurately estimate timings for - and the right selection of - maintenance and replacement activities at an onshore or offshore wind farm over a specified time horizon. A main feature of these models is the combination of preventive and condition-based maintenance principles - which allows a wind power owner to increase the availability of the wind farm. The ultimate aim of the project is the design of a maintenance app based on the optimization model, for the utilization by maintenance engineers in their work scheduling.

​This project aims to develop models of the permanent magnet synchronous generator (PMSG) with internal faults to understand how the generator behaves in this state. By using the gained knowledge more effective detection systems can be designed which can limit any secondary damage. Both analytical models and finite element models has been developed for the most common (but also the most difficult to detect) internal fault: the turn-to-turn fault. After applying mathematical transformation methods on the analytical model of the PMSG with turn-to-turn fault it was shown that additional generator currents harmonics appears if the mathematical transformation was applied to the generator currents as well. This was confirmed using the finite element model. The current objective is to extent the models to more generator geometries and to test the developed models in more realistic scenarios.

​The project will study and evaluate common damages on blades and develop fast and reliable repair methods to increase the function of de-icing equipment in order to secure efficient production from wind turbines. In addition, new technology to monitor the functionality of AIS-systems (Anti-Ice Systems) will be evaluated. Experiments and validation will mainly be performed in the process laboratory at Swerea SICOMP but also on a full-scale wind turbine. The main target is to increase the efficiency of wind turbines in cold climate under icing conditions.

​The project deals with LES simulations (i.e. numerical accurate solutions av Navier-Stokes equations) of the atmospheric boundary layer above and inside forest regions. From these simulations, instantaneous turbulence data are extracted, serving as inflow data in subsequent fatigue-load calculations for a wind turbine. It is expected that the presence of a forest would lead to stronger atmospheric turbulence and increased wind shear, compared to flow over low-roughness flat terrain. By simulating the atmospheric boundary layer with and without a forest, this expectation could be verified and it was possible to quantify the effect of the forest on the wind-turbine fatigue loads. It could be shown that typical loads are increased by a factor of almost three in terms of root-mean-square values and equivalent fatigue loads.

​Wind turbine gear boxes are plagued by pre-mature bearing failures. The failures exhibit a new type of failures with a common feature of a white etching crack system below the raceway. One suggested method to overcome these failures is to increase the strength of the raceway material. In this project a new bearing concept has been developed for high performance bearings. The bearings are fabricated by a powder metallurgical route where a high performance raceway material is Hot Isostatic Pressed (HIP) onto a cheaper core material. This enables to tailor properties such as toughness and residual stresses.

​An increasing amount of remote large-scale offshore wind farms are being connected to the main onshore grid by means of High-voltage Direct Current (HVDC) systems. The remote sites enable good wind conditions and generation out-of-sight. However, the complex interaction between the interfaces of the wind turbine generators and in particular their converter controls, the cable systems, the offshore substation components and offshore HVDC converter can give rise to resonance phenomena as well as in-proper control or protection actions. The aim of this project is to acquire a deep knowledge on the robustness of this kind of systems and to understand the root causes of possible instability issues through analytical investigations and development of relevant simulation models and guiding principles. In addition, the potential impact of the interactions that might appear in the offshore system on the connecting onshore AC grid will be investigated.

​Triblade is a novel technology for wind turbine rotor blades that allows blades to be longer, stronger and much lighter than today. Using the same material as in standard blades, Triblade will reduce blade weight by up to 80 % and potentially make it possible to manufacture blades twice as long as today. In the project, analysis on structural and aerodynamic performance have been completed through simulations, a draft design for Chalmers’ test turbine has been completed, wind tunnel tests are scheduled, and a prototype of a critical part of the design is under development.

​The project main aim is to study drive train system dynamics of wind turbines. The drive train system is here considered as the electro-mechanical subsystem comprising shafts, bearings, gearbox, shaft couplings, mounts, generator, and other functional components of a wind turbine that transfers mechanical power from the rotor hub to the electric power generator, and thereby plays an important role in a wind turbine dynamics.
The project includes both theoretical and experimental study the drive train; and focusses on the high-speed shaft subsystem of indirect drive wind turbines. The objective is to understand and predict how the functional components interact with respect to external loads, misalignments and other excitations. It is expected that the obtained knowledge will contribute to the understanding why sometimes drive train functional components like bearings and gearboxes have failed after substantially shorter time (1-7 years) instead of the 20 years they were designed for. As an example of results, the method of global sensitivity analysis has been used to analyze the drive train dynamics dependency on structural parameters and to show how this knowledge can be used to evaluate new concepts of condition monitoring systems to detect faults in drive train functional components.

​The goal of the project is to investigate the application of VSC-based testing equipment for model validation of wind turbines. The advantages and limitations of the use of VSC-based testing equipment for model validation and testing of wind turbine is investigated in this project. That includes frequency characterization of wind turbine to detect possible control interaction between wind turbine and the interconnecting system i.e. HVDC or AC collector grid, and testing of the generating unit for different scenarios for both normal and faulty condition of the grid. In order to validate the investigated methodology, the project includes a comprehensive comparison between the developed simulation models, small scale wind turbine and testing equipment model and full power test at a 4 MW wind turbine and an 8 MW HVDC test system in Gothenburg.

System simulation tools are pivotal in the understanding the functioning of wind turbines as a whole and how different sub-systems interact. To this end, a number of tools have been developed, such as FAST, BLADED and others. These tools are typically optimized for quick execution and difficult to extend with new component models. An effort within SWPTC is to develop an open-source unified interface (called FreeDyn) for coupling different kinds of component-specific models (nacelle, tower, blade, aerodynamics, control and power electronics, etc.) to study these models in a complete wind turbine simulation setting.​

​Wind turbines have proven to be a promising solution in a sustainable energy system. Reliability of wind turbines has become an important factor, which will decide the extent of wind power in future energy system. Failures in wind turbines, typically, take longer to repair and lead to higher revenue losses. This project proposes a maintenance management framework which intends to provide guidelines to wind farm owners to predict failures and reduce the time to repair the failures. The availability of large amount of measurement data for wind turbines has made it possible to develop new methods to predict future failures in wind turbines. This project also presents a method to use the different types of measurement data from wind turbine to predict failure in critical wind turbine components. This information can be used to schedule a maintenance activity to replace the component that might fail thereby reducing risk of unplanned failure.

​Premature failures of bearings in electrical drive systems started to increase in the early 1990’s due to the introduction of the Insulated Gate Bipolar Transistor (IGBT). The converter modulation scheme, in combination with high voltage derivative, creates a high-frequent shaft voltage that drives a current through the bearing. This, together with discharge of energy stored in stray capacitances, result in development of damages such as micro-craters on the balls and fluting pattern on the raceways. The overall aim of the research in this project is to increase the electro-physical understanding of how bearing currents are initiated in a steel bearing in presence of a shaft voltage and understanding of the damages that these currents cause. The electrical behaviour and properties of a bearing at different operating points have been experimentally investigated and modelled.

​Cold climate and risk for icing can cause production losses or reduced service life for the wind power units. Through discussion with wind power owners, a project was defined to evaluate if research can assist the industry to develop more effective deicing of the blades. The aim of the project was to develop models, simulation techniques and experimental methods to evaluate the efficiency of deicing equipment and its influence on the expected life of the turbine blades. In addition, manufacturing techniques have been developed to build more efficient deicing systems.

​An accurate modeling of the rotor blades to predict the turbine loads allows us to design and optimize the rotor blades which consequently decrease the operating and the maintenance costs. For this purpose, a time-marching Vortex Lattice Free Wake method has been developed to study the aerodynamic loads. It is based on the potential, inviscid and irrotational flow where it is coupled to the tabulated airfoil data and a semi-empirical model to take into account the viscosity and unsteady effects, respectively. The existing in-house code includes different modules which may increase its application range to handle a broad range of operating conditions such as movement of turbine components and turbulent incoming flow. It has been validated against other codes, measurement data and wind tunnel measurements.

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Electrical Engineering

SWPTC - Swedish Wind Power Technology Centre

This is what we do:

Optimal maintenance of wind power plants

Models of electrical drives for wind turbines

Increased reliability of heating systems on wind turbine blades

Fatigue loads in forest regions

Development of Compound Bearing Concept for Wind Power Applications

Electromagnetic Transient study of wind farms connected by HVDC

Triblade rotor blades preliminary study

Wind turbine drive train system dynamics

Model verification and testing of wind turbines systems by VSC-based testing equipment

Freedyn and wind turbine system simulation

Load- and Risk-based Maintenance Management for Wind Turbines

Characterisation and modelling of bearing current activity

Characterisation and modelling of bearing current activity

Efficiency and influence of heating device on wind turbine blades

Aerodynamic loads on rotor blades

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