Wind pressure and structure response analysis of onshore horizontal-axial wind turbine under strong wind by CFD and FEA.

In this paper wind field and work performance of horizontal-axial wind turbine (HAWT) structure under strong wind are studied by Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) with Finite Element Analysis (FEA). Wind environment and wind load of a HAWT structure are examined by CFD under strong static winds with speed of 25m/s and 33m/s and fluctuating wind with average speed of 33m/s. Structural analysis show that structural responses increase in magnitude under fluctuating wind compared with those under static wind. It shows that fluctuating wind can be used to obtain exact behaviours for high-rise structure like HAWT for their property of wind sensitivity. Otherwise, the structural response will be underestimated under actual wind loading and safety performance cannot be evaluated accurately for this kind structure. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]