Comparison of optimization methods for wind turbine blades

The design and optimization of wind turbine rotors is a complex and challenging problem. Both aerodynamic and structural issues must be taken into account to reach the most balanced solution and a large set of constraints must be considered to ensure the feasibility of the solution. The strict relationship between aerodynamic and structural behavior of the rotor blades poses issues on the design procedure because the two aspects must be considered together. In the context of research carried out by TU München's Lehrstuhl für Windenergie and Politecnico di Milano's POLI-Wind, the aim of this work is to build a code for the integrated aero-structural optimization of wind turbines and then to compare for this code different solving algorithms. At each iteration the code selects a blade shape in terms of chord distribution, then a twist optimization process is performed and eventually a structural optimization is carried out and the cost of energy produced by the wind turbine is calculated. Dynamic and static aeroelastic simulation are performed for loads and annual energy production estimation. Acting like this, the coupling between aerodynamic and structural aspects should be ensured.