Multi‐fidelity digital twin structural model for a sub‐scale downwind wind turbine rotor blade

Abstract

This paper presents the development of a multi-fidelity digital twin structural model (virtual model) of an as-built wind turbine blade. The goal is to develop and demonstrate an approach to produce an accurate and detailed model of the as-built blade for use in verifying the performance of the operating two-bladed, downwind rotor.The digital twin model development methodology, presented herein, involves a novel calibration process to integrate a wide range of information including design specifications, manufacturing information, and structural testing data (modal and static) to produce a multi-fidelity digital twin structural model: a detailed high-fidelity model (i.e., 3D finite element analysis [FEA]) and consistent beam-type models for aeroelastic simulation. A key element is that the multi-fidelity structural digital twin method follows the rotor from the stages of design, to manufacturing, then to the ground testing and field operation. The result of this comprehensive approach is an accurate multi-fidelity digital twin structural model for the geometric, structural, and structural dynamic properties of the as-built blade within a 1% match in mass properties, 3.2% in blade frequencies, and 6% in deflection. The different stages of processing this information within the methodology are discussed. The rotor examined is the SUMR-Demonstrator (SUMR-D), which was installed on the Controls Advanced Research Testbed (CART-2) wind turbine at the National Wind Technology Center. The digital twin model developed here was utilized to design controllers to safely operate SUMR-D in field tests, which are providing additional data for further evaluation and development of the multi-fidelity digital twin structural model.digital twin, downwind, extreme-scale wind turbine, field-testing, multi-fidelity model | INTRODUCTIONA numerical model that represents a physical system (i.e., "Digital Twin" as it's commonly known) has a wide variety of uses specifically to understand the behavior of a system under varying environmental or operating conditions without the cost of experimental operation time. Digital twins can aid in troubleshooting and remediation of performance issues, assist in prediction of failure of a real-world system, and help understand systems in extreme conditions that are difficult or risky to replicate physically. Digital twins can also provide estimates of system response (i.e., sensing) that are difficult or costly to measure. The low cost of digital twin models provides an abundance of opportunities for industry and

Design and analysis of a segmented blade for a 50 MW wind turbine rotor

“…First, the total bolt area required to withstand the shear and axial forces at the joint are determined with equation (1) (shear force on the bolt) and equation ( 2) (von Mises stress on the bolt) which were used to analyze and size the root bolts for SUMR-D (Bay et al, 2019;Chetan et al, 2021;Kaminski et al, 2021;Yao et al, 2019Yao et al, , 2020. We chose to use DLC 1.2 loads in this step because the bolts are made of metal that has a much lower fatigue Wo¨hler exponent (m) than fiberglass and carbon fiber.…”

Field tests of a highly flexible downwind ultralight rotor to mimic a 13-MW turbine rotor

“…In order to gain an additional understanding of the SUMR-D structural performance, a multi-fidelity digital twin structural model (virtual model) was developed for the SUMR-D as-built design [24]. The goal was to develop and demonstrate an approach to produce an accurate and detailed model of the asbuilt blade for use in verifying the performance of the operating two-bladed, downwind rotor.…”

“…This method follows the rotor from the stages of design to manufacturing, then to the ground testing and field operation. The result is an accurate multi-fidelity digital twin model for the geometric, structural, and structural dynamic properties of the as-built blade within a 1% match in mass properties, 3.2% in blade frequencies, and 6% in deflection [24].…”

Digital Twin-Driven Crack Monitoring for Rotating Blade: An L1 regularization Method

“…However, the detailed technologies and the implementation method involved in their digital twin models are inaccessible. In academia, some applications in health monitoring field based on digital twin are explored [14][15][16][17]. However, there are few investigations related to crack monitoring for rotating blade.…”