Designing an H-rotor type Wind Turbine for Operation on Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station

This thesis focuses on designing the turbine, tower structure and generator for an H-rotor type wind turbine. The produced power will be used for heating of drilling equipment, stored in containers, on the Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station. A 23 kW wind turbine producing 5 kW on average has been designed. Moreover, the design has been tested to be mounted on top of the container storing the drilling equipment. Climatological data have been processed to describe the wind regime in useful terms. A three bladed H-rotor has been dimensioned for the mean power demand using a Conformal Mapping and Double Multiple Streamtube model. The tower structure has been tested considering strength and eigenfrequencies with simulations based on Finite Element Method and analytical calculations. An outer rotor generator has been designed using a simulation code based on Finite Element Method. The site specific constraints due to the extreme climate in Antarctica are considered throughout the design process. Installing this wind turbine would be a first step towards higher penetration of renewable energy sources on the Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station.

[1]  M. Drela.  XFOIL: An Analysis and Design System for Low Reynolds Number Airfoils , 1989 .

[2]  Hans Bernhoff,et al.  Design of a 12kW vertical axis wind turbine equipped with a direct driven PM synchronous generator , 2006 .

[3]  Frederick S. Merritt,et al.  Building Design and Construction Handbook , 1982 .

[4]  John Turner,et al.  Antarctic Meteorology and Climatology , 1998 .

[5]  Mats Leijon,et al.  Investigating the overload capacity of a direct‐driven synchronous permanent magnet wind turbine generator designed using high‐voltage cable technology , 2007 .

[6]  P. C. Klimas,et al.  Effects of blade preset pitch/offset on curved-blade Darrieus vertical axis wind turbine performance , 1981 .

[7]  D. R. Freitag,et al.  Introduction to Cold Regions Engineering , 1997 .

[8]  Mats Leijon,et al.  Evaluation of different turbine concepts for wind power , 2008 .

[9]  C. Nordling,et al.  Physics Handbook for Science and Engineering , 1996 .

[11]  Chunting Mi,et al.  Minimization of iron losses of permanent magnet synchronous machines , 2005 .

[12]  R. Templin.  Aerodynamic performance theory for the NRC vertical-axis wind turbine , 1974 .

[13]  George L. Blaisdell,et al.  Snow Mechanics: Review of the State of Knowledge and Applications, , 1997 .

[14]  Hans Bernhoff,et al.  Simulations and experiments on a 12 kW direct driven PM synchronous generator for wind power , 2008 .

[15]  Gregory F. Homicz.  VAWT Stochastic Loads Produced by Atmospheric Turbulence , 1989 .

[16]  L. L. Freris,et al.  Electric Energy: Its Generation, Transmission and Use , 1980 .