Performance of non-intrusive uncertainty quantification in the aeroservoelastic simulation of wind turbines

Abstract

Abstract. The paper studies the effects of uncertainties on aeroservoelastic wind turbine models. Two non-intrusive uncertainty quantification methods are considered, namely non-intrusive polynomial chaos expansion and Kriging. Uncertainties are associated with the wind inflow characteristics and the blade surface state, on account of soiling and/or erosion, and propagated throughout the aeroservoelastic model of a large conceptual off-shore wind turbine. Results are compared with a brute-force extensive Monte Carlo sampling. Both methods appear to yield similar results, with a somewhat faster convergence for Kriging. The analysis of the solution space clearly indicates the effects of uncertainties and their couplings, and highlights some possible shortcomings of current mostly deterministic approaches.