Light Rotor: The 10-MW reference wind turbine

This paper describes the design of a rotor and a wind turbine for an artificial 10-MW wind turbine carried out in the Light Rotor project. The turbine called the Light Rotor 10-MW Reference Wind Turbine (LR10-MW RWT), is designed with existing methods and techniques and serves as a reference to future advanced rotor designs in the project.

The results shown in this paper are not for the final design, but for Iteration #2 in the design process. Several issues in the design process were highlighted. Before carrying out the design many decisions have to be made and this paper elaborate on issues like the determination of the specific power and upscaling of the turbine.

The design of Iteration #2 of the LR10-MW RWT is carried out in a sequence between aerodynamic rotor design, structural design and aero-servo-elastic design. Each of these topics is described. The results from the Iteration #2 design show a rather well performing wind turbine both in terms of power and loads, but in the further work towards the final design the challenges in the control needs to be solved and the balance between power performance and loads and between structural performance and mass will be investigated further resulting in changes in the present design.