Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
Spain), research was carried out within the EC and IEA programs.
The added value of the EC program in particular was pooling of
expertise and resources, so projects could be carried out that
exceeded the capability of individual countries. Without the EC
programs, which had their own financial resources, and those of
the IEA we would never have seen such an intensive exchange of
scientists, engineers and views around Europe and the world.
Among the striking examples of high-impact European projects
are the European Wind Atlas, the WEGA and THERMIE wind
turbine development and test projects and the development,
improvement and verification of design tools to which also ECN
contributed considerably over a very long time span. I personally
had the honour to initiate and co-manage the Integrated Project
“UpWind”, run by our colleagues of Risø, Denmark, which has
explored the design limits of very large wind turbines. It was the
largest single EC project in the area of Renewable Energy and
involved more than 30 participants.
Advances in design related knowledge were impressive,
in particular in the areas of aerodynamics, wake modelling in
wind farms, aero-elasticity, FEM, structural dynamics, measuring
techniques, system modelling and control technology. Analytical
results had to be verified and to that end dedicated experimental
open air turbines were realised for field aerodynamic experiments.
Laboratory facilities mainly comprised blade test rigs, material
test benches, drive train test beds and dedicated wind energy
wind tunnels. Most of the research hardware facilities were
national initiatives and were used with occasional support from
the European Commission for European projects. These facilities
all had some unique features. The most important open air wind
turbine test beds include:
• Uniwecs (16 m diameter, 2-bladed, downwind): hub confi-
guration could be changed by computer controlled hydraulics
(individually hinged blades, teetering hub, and fixed hub) and
the damping and stifness parameters were adjustable.
• 25mHAT (25 m diameter, 2-bladed, upwind): Fully adjus-
table generator load characteristics, using DC generator and
12 pulse inverter).
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