Consolidated results of the laboratory and full scale field validation of an active flap system

This article presents the consolidated results of a comprehensive validation campaign of a pneumatic active flap system (AFS) developed within the scope of the Induflap2 project [1] in a collaboration effort between Siemens Gamesa Renewable Energy A/S (SGRE), the Technical University of Denmark (DTU), and Rehau GmbH.

The validation results presented herein include wind tunnel measurements, measurements in a rotating test rig under free atmospheric conditions, as well as the validation at full scale on a 4MW wind turbine with 130m rotor diameter (SWT-4.0-130). This article is of a summarizing character and the reader is referred to further literature where applicable.

During the course of the project, several revisions of the AFS were developed and tested at different levels of fidelity. Along with the different variations of the AFS, the impact of variations of the geometric and material related design parameters were studied. Two of the latest revisions of the AFS were tested at full scale on a wind turbine.

The measurements presented herein focus solely on the latest revision of the AFS (internally referred to as the FT008rev10 concept). The different tests and measurements were performed in the period from 2016 to 2019. During the full scale measurements, a wind speed dependent load impact between 5% and 10% was measured for the blade root flapwise bending moments, demonstrating thus a large potential for turbine loading adjustments to perform active load control on modern wind turbines.