Investigating the efficacy of baseline wind turbine controllers against ice accumulation on rotor blades

Date

2025-09-01

Author

Şahin, Mustafa

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Blade ice accumulation is a serious problem that changes turbine aerodynamics and dynamics, leading to lowerpower output and higher structural loading. Different from the literature, this paper investigates the performanceeffectiveness of baseline wind turbine controllers: the generator torque and collective blade pitch controllers againstrotor blade ice accumulation. The NREL 5-MW turbine is utilised, and simulations of baseline controllers areconducted with the MS (Mustafa Sahin) Bladed Model for clean and iced blade cases. The performance of thecontrollers is examined in below (Region 2) and above (Region 3) rated regions under 1 m/s step rising windspeeds. Results are presented through various parameters, including turbine controllers’ gain(s), blade pitch angle,rotor speed, power, etc. Rotor speed response is used to evaluate the controllers’ performance. Even slight bladeice accumulation is estimated to affect turbine efficiency and characteristics, decreasing Cpmax by 13.27%, slightlyvarying optimum blade pitch angle and tip speed ratio, altering the control input gain by up to 14.68%. Blade iceaccumulation is observed to adversely affect baseline controllers’ performance. In Region 2, the torque controllerexhibits reduced transient and steady-state performance, with rotor speed reaching the steady-state approximately 2 slater and showing a steady-state error of 1.86%. In Region 3, the pitch controller’s transient performance deterioratesat lowwind speeds, particularly near the rated wind speed, leading to an increased decay time of up to 5.2 s. However,beyond 16 m/s, pitch controller performance gradually recovers, becoming nearly identical to the clean blade caseat 21 m/s, while the controller steady-state performance remains unaffected

URI

https://hdl.handle.net/11511/115937

Collections

Center for Wind Energy (RÜZGEM), Article