Development of a Wind Turbine Simulator

for Wind Generator Testing

Bunlung Neammanee, Somporn Sirisumrannukul and Somchai Chatratana

Abstract— The paper presents the development of a wind turbine simulator which consists of an induction motor driven by a torque
control inverter. The wind turbine simulation system includes: wind speed simulation, mathematical model of wind turbines, modeling of
rotor blade characteristics, modeling of tower effect and emulation of rotor inertia. Wind speed can be easily programmed according to
recorded wind speed data or Van Der Hoven model or manual set up. The developed algorithms were implemented by a low-cost, high-
performance DSC controller with C language and the system was tested in the laboratory with 1 kW dc generator. The power responses,
torque responses and tip speed ratio responses confirms that the system can operate very well under step change of power reference and
load disturbances. The advantages of the simulators are that various wind profiles and wind turbines can be incorporated as desired in the
control software and it includes the data acquisition to verify the control algorithms and display the parameters. The experimental results
confirmed the wind turbine simulator can perform satisfactory under steady state wind profile, turbulence and tower effect.

Keywords— Wind turbine simulator, Wind speed generation, Power spectrum, Torque control
ρ = density of air [kg/m3]
NOMENCLATURE1
cP = power coefficient of turbine [pu]
1. INTRODUCTION
cT = torque coefficient of turbine [pu] Wind power has become one of the most attractive energy
f = frequency [Hz] resources as it is almost pollution-free (if noise is not considered
G = gear ratio [pu] as pollution) when used for electricity production. As a result, a
Jg = inertia of generator [kg.m2] great deal of research has been focused on the development of
Jm = inertia of motor [kg.m2] new turbine design to hoe to reduce the costs of wind power and
Jt = inertia of turbine [kg.m2] how to make wind turbines more economical and efficient. The
N = sampling operation investigation of wind power system involves high performance
P = output power of turbine [W] wind turbine simulator, especially for the development of
Pturb = power produced by turbine [W] optimal control solutions. At present, such simulator has become
Pwind = power in wind [W] a necessary tool for research laboratories to enhance the quality
R = radius of blade of blade [m] of the wind energy conversion system.
Svv = power spectral debsity [ m2/s] The basic requirement for a wind simulator is that its static
Tf1 = friction torque of wind turbine system [N.m] and dynamic characteristics must be as close as possible to those
Tf2 = friction torque of M-G set [N.m] of real wind turbine. For the last few decades, the most common
Τcomp = compensation torque [N.m] structure of a wind simulator was based on a DC motor with
Τf1 = friction torque [N.m] current control (i.e., torque control on the shaft of the DC motor).
Τg = generator torque [N.m] However, the simulator requires a relatively large-sized DC
Τm = motor torque [N.m] motor. This constraint makes DC motor system unattractive, due
Τtower = tower effect turbine ripple [N.m] to its unavailability and maintenance requirement. In addition, it
is rather expensive. Later the DC motor system was replaced by
Τturb = turbine torque [N.m]
an induction motor system which eliminated the above
T’turb = turbine torque without tower effect [N.m]
mentioned disadvantages.
vt = wind speed [m/s]
In this paper, a squirrel cage induction motor (IM) is
v = mean wind speed [m/s] proposed for a wind simulator as a torque-generating source. The
α = angular acceleration of turbine [rad/s2] wind simulator consists of two main parts as shown in Fig 1. The
β = pitch angle [rad] first part (left hand side of the figure) is used to create required
ϕi = phase angle with uniformly distributed random wind speed. The power-speed pattern of the wind can be
number in a domain of [rad]. generated from the data based on the Van Der Hoven power
λ = tip speed ratio [pu] spectrum model or from the actual recorded wind speed data or
from manual set up. This part includes the mathematical model
ω0 = starting radian frequency [rad/s] of the wind turbine to calculate reference signals which will be
ωg = angular velocity of generator [rad/s] used as torque reference for the inverter in the second part. The
ωt = angular speed of turbine [rad/s] second part is an electromechanical tracking system (ETS) which
generates shaft torque whose characteristics are governed by the
pattern determined by the first part.

B. Neumanee and S. Sirisumrannukul are with Department of Electrical

Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, King Mongkut’s Institute of
Technology North Bangkok, Thailand, Pibulsongkram Rd., Bangsue,
Bangkok 10800, Thailand, E-mail: bln@kmitnb.ac.th, spss@kmitnb.ac.th

S. Chatratana is a Deputy Director of the Technology Management

Center, National Science and Technology Development Agency
(NSTDA), 111 Thailand Science Park, Paholyothin Rd., Klong 1, Klong
Luang, Phathumthani 12120, Thailand, E-mail : somchaich@nstda.or.th
 Fig.1 Wind speed simulation system with DSC board and
electromechanical systems.

The developed wind turbine simulator employs a 4-kW

induction motor as prime mover. A digital signal controller
(DSC) board is used to interface the wind speed generator and a
torque control inverter which drives induction motor. A control
program is developed to obtain output torque from wind profiles.
The program also computes the theoretical shaft torque of the
wind turbine from turbine characteristics and rotation speed of
the induction motor.

2. WIND SPEED SIMULATION

The modeling of wind speed modeling is very important

because it dictates the performances of wind generators and Fig. 2 Van der Hoven spectral model.
determines the features offered by a simulator for prediction of
the energy output and analysis of the energy conversion and
system dynamics. The nature of wind speed is generally assumed 3. MATHEMATICAL MODEL OF WIND
to be composed of two components: steady state mean flow and
TURBINE
turbulence. Turbulence is characterized by random fluctuation of
speeds. Simulation of these two components is usually performed A typical horizontal wind turbine with three blades
separately. The mean wind speed is the steady part of temporal coupled with a gear box to capture and transfer energy to the
average over some period and increases with the elevation. The generator, is shown in Fig. 3. Many wind turbines are directly
turbulent of wind speed is random with time and space and is coupled with low speed generator without a gear to reduce the
commonly assumed to be a stationary Gaussian process [1]. gear’s losses, weight, and maintenances. A vertical wind turbine
As wind speed data are time series, the identification of the has the same characteristics but it can be operated at a low tip
data can be captured in forms of time and frequency domains. In speed ratio. The characteristics such as power, torque, and speed
this paper, frequency power spectrums based on the Van der for both types of the wind turbines can be modeled by a motor
Hoven model shown in Fig. 2, is chosen [2], [3]. This model is and generator set with a motor torque controller. The controller
regarded as one of the best known reference of wind speed uses a torque reference which depends on wind speed, angular
models. In frequency domain, the equivalent description of wind speed and the aerodynamics of the rotor blade to generate a
fluctuation component can be obtained through power spectrum desired torque.
density and coherence functions.
The power spectrum in Fig. 2 shows the contribution of
harmonic components in a range from 0.0007 to 900 cycles/h
(i.e., more than six decades). This spectrum gives a complete
description of the energy content of turbulence. The frequency
range contains the spectral domain that describes the medium
and long-term variations, as well as the spectral range of the
turbulent component.
From Van der Hoven model, a numerical wind speed
simulation procedure has been developed based on the sampling
of the spectrum. For every value of discrete angular frequency ωi
, i = 1, 2,…, N+1, Van der Hoven spectral model gives a
corresponding value of power spectral density, Svv(ωi). The
amplitude Ai of the wind harmonic at frequency ωi is given by

1
Ai = [S vv (ωi ) + S vv (ωi+1 )](ωi+1 − ωi ) (1)
2

The wind speed as a function of time v(t) is simulated by

Fig. 3 a) Horizontal wind turbine coupling with gear box.
N b) Vertical twisted-H Rotor with direct coupling to
v( t ) = A 0 + ∑ A i cos(ωt + ϕi ) (2) generator.
i =1

with A0= v , ω0 =0 and ϕ0=0. Note that the first and second terms
of Equation (2) represent the average and turbulence of wind
speed respectively. The parameter v is calculated on a time
horizon greater than the largest period in the Van der Hoven
characteristic.
3.1 Modeling of Rotor Blade Characteristics
Wind speed generally varies according to elevation of the
blades (i.e., every single spot on the turbines would not have the
same wind speed). Modeling of wind speed must take into
account all different positions on the blades and therefore, it is
very difficult. For the sake of simplicity, single value of wind
speed is applied to the whole wind turbines. Modeling of rotor
blade characteristic requires tip speed ratio and the relationship
of torque and power coefficient versus tip speed ratio. The tip
speed ratio (TSR), λ is obtained from
Fig. 5 Block diagram of rotor blade characteristics.
ωt R
λ= (3)
vt
3.2 Periodic Torque Ripple caused by Tower Effect
The power captured by the blades, Pturb, can be calculated
using There is a phenomenon that the output torque of a wind
turbine contains periodically rippled torque [6]. The phenomenon
ρ can be graphically explained by Fig. 6 (a). As the wind passes
Pturb = πR 2 v 3tc P (λ, β) (4) through the tower, the wind speed in front of the tower decreases
2 due to the resistance of the tower structure. At this time, if the
tower and one of the blades are in alignment, the wind speed
striking the blades will reduce and cause the ripple effect as
The aerodynamic torque acting on the blades, Τturb, is shown in Fig 6 (b), where the shape of torque ripple is modeled
obtained by as a ramp function [7]. The frequency of the rippled torque is
equal to the main rotational frequency multiplies by the number
ρ of blades. The shape and amount of torque ripple depend on the
Tturb = πR 3 v 2t c T (λ, β) (5)
2 characteristic of physical structures. Net output torque which
takes the tower effect into account, can be calculated by

If cP is known, the aerodynamic torque can also be ′ − Ttower

Tturb = Tturb (7)
calculated from

ρ Tturb = ( J t + GJ g )α + GTg + Tf 1 (8)

Tturb = πR 2 v 3tc P (λ, β) / ω t (6)
2

It can be seen from the above two equations that cT and cP

are a function of λ and β. But in this paper, β is kept constant;
namely, pitch angle is fixed and this is generally true for a small
wind turbine. Therefore, cT and cP depend only on λ.
Figure 4 shows a relationship of torque coefficient versus
TSR of a real 3 kW, three blade horizontal axis wind turbine with
a rotor diameter of 4.5 m [4]. This curve represents an important
characteristic which determines the starting torque of the wind
turbine. In general, this curve is available from the manufacture
or can be obtained from a field test. With this curve, cP , which
indicates the efficiency of power conversion of the rotor blades,
can be calculated by multiplying cT with λ [5]. Fig. 4 also shows
the cP-TSR profile corresponding to the cP curve. It is important (a)
to note that the power and torque coefficient of a wind turbine
depends on aerodynamic design of the blades. With Equations
(3) - (5) and Fig. 4, a block diagram for the system can be built
as shown in Fig. 5.

0.45
power and torque coefficient [cP, cT]

0.4
cP
0.35

0.3

0.25
(b)
0.2
Fig. 6 (a) Rotor position at 0, π /3, 2π/3 rad (black blade
0.15
creates the tower effect). (b) Periodic torque ripple modeling
0.1
cT
with tower effect of 3 blades wind turbine.
0.05

0
0 2 4 6 8 10 12 3.3 Emulation of Rotor Inertia
tip speed ratio [λ]

Figure 7 shows the physical structure of a wind turbine

Fig. 4 cT-λ and cP-λ characteristic of a real wind turbine. consisting of blades (left part), a gear box (middle part), and a
generator (right part). A torque equation of the wind turbine is
given in Equation (8) with an assumption that all of the rotating
parts are considered as a lumped mass. Figure 8 shows the block
diagram of the wind turbine, which is developed from Equations
(3) and (8).

Fig. 7 System moment of inertia: gear box with turbine and
generator torque.
Fig. 8 Block diagram of the wind turbines with finite blades
and friction losses.
If an induction motor is employed in the wind turbine
simulator, the torque behavior generated by motor should be
similar to that generated by a real wind turbine. This can be
achieved by a dynamic equation
Tm = (J m + GJ g )α + GTg + Tf 2 (9)
Subtracting equation (8) from equation (9) with the
assumption that the friction and gear losses are negligible (i.e.,
Tf1 and Tf2=0) and rearranging, results in
Tm = Tturb − (J t − J m )α (10)
Tcomp = (J t − J m )α (11)
Figure 9 shows an extension of Fig. 8 to include
compensation moment of inertia, (Jt-Jm), and derivative of
rotational speed used to produce the compensation torque. The
compensation torque varies according to the acceleration or
deceleration of the wind turbine. A low pass filter (LPF) is
included for noise elimination.
Fig. 9 The block diagram of wind turbine with compensate
the moment of inertia.
4. IMPLEMENTATION OF WIND SIMULATOR
SYSTEM
4.1 Wind simulator hardware
The hardware components in Fig. 10 compose of 1) three
phase 4-kW induction motor coupled with 1 kW dc generator, 2)
1000 pulses rotary encoder, 3) torque control inverter (FRENIC
5000 G11), 4) Digital signal controller (DSC) board, and 5) a
personal computer. The controller board uses a high performance
16 bits dsPIC30f4011 which combines the advantage of high
performance 16-bit microcontroller (MCU) and high
computation speed digital signal processors (DSP). Speed signal
from the encoder is sent to the torque controller inverter and the
DSC board via a data acquisition interface circuit inside the DSC
board. The DSC board is linked with the personal computer via
two RS232 ports: one port for transferring wind speed data to the
DSC board and another port for sending the values of different
parameters (i.e., P, ωt, α, λ, cT) to the computer.
Fig. 10 Wind simulator hardware structure.
4.2 Wind simulator software
Figure 11 shows the diagram for signal flow of the
software implemented on the DSC. The command sets are
programmed in C language. The algorithm starts by receiving
rotational speed signal from the encoder and wind speed that can
be selected from three sources as shown by a block at the lower
end on the left hand corner of Fig. 11. The three sources are 1)
manual input from a potentiometer, 2) a data file from a wind
speed recorder and 3) a wind speed simulator software which is
able to generate the time-series wind speed based on a specified
model such as the Van der Hoven power spectrum model.
Fig. 11 Signal Flow of Wind simulator software.
With wind speed data, the DSC is able to calculate
parameters such as ωg, λ, and α. The parameter cT, which is
needed for the aerodynamic torque calculation, can be directly
obtained from a look up table. The DSC computes the torque
compensation and the periodic torque ripple due to the tower
effect represented by a block diagram at the top of Fig.11. Once
Τm is obtained, it will be sent to D/A to convert to motor torque
reference command in the form of voltage ranging from 0 to
10V. This command will be passed to the torque control inverter
to drive the motor.
5. EXPERIMENTAL RESULTS
Three experiments were conducted on the wind turbine
simulator: 1) Determination of the wind turbine characteristic, 2)
Load perturbation and 3) Wind speed simulation. Figure 12 from Equation (6) effectively. It can be concluded from Fig. 14-
shows power-speed curves at different wind speeds (4, 4.5, 5 and 17 that the digital controller of the wind turbine simulator gives
5.5 m/s). The solid lines in the figure are obtained from the very satisfactory steady performance.
calculation using Equation (4) whereas the diamond and plus
symbols represent the measurement from the experiment. Fig. 13
1000

R eferen ce p o w er [W ]
shows a plot of power coefficient and TSR. The solid line inside
the graph is calculated based on Equations (4) and (5). The plus
500 (a)
signs stand for power coefficient of the wind turbine. As can be
seen from the two figures, there is a good agreement between the
0
calculation and measurement from the simulator. The results 0 50 100 150 200 250 300 350Time [s]400
verify that the wind turbine simulator can reproduce the steady- 1000

O u tp u t p o w er [W ]
state characteristics of a given wind turbine at various wind
conditions. 500 (b)

0
0 50 100 150 200 250 300 350 Time [s]400
po 800
we 500
r 700
[W

E rro r
0 (c)
] 5.5 m/s
600

500 -500
0 50 100 150 200 250 300 350 Time [s]400

400
5 m/s Fig. 14 Power response of the wind turbine generator to a
300 step increase and load disturbance. (a) reference power
4.5 m/s (b) output power of induction motor, (c) error signal.
200
4 m/s
100
20

M o to r sp eed [ra d /s]

0
0 100 200 300 400 500 600 700 800 900 1000
speed [rpm] 10 (a)

Fig. 12 Characteristics of a wind turbine simulator

(◊ and + ) and calculated results. 0
0 50 100 150 200 250 300 350Time [s]400
R eferen ce p o w er [W ]

1000

0.5 500 (b)

Power coefficient

0.45
0
0.4 0 50 100 150 200 250 300 350 Time [s]400
10
0.35
T ip sp eed ra tio

0.3
5 (c)
0.25

0.2 0
0 50 100 150 200 250 300 350Time [s]400
0.15 Fig
0.1 . 15. Speed and tip speed ratio responses to load
0.05
perturbation, (a) motor speed, (b) reference power, (c) tip
speed ratio of wind turbine simulator.
0
0 2 4 6 8 10 12
Tip speed ratio [λ]
10
T ip sp eed ra tio

Fig. 13 Power coefficient of the wind turbine simulator and

calculated results. 5 (a)

The power response of the wind turbine simulator on the 0

0 50 100 150 200 250 300 350 400
Time [s]
1-kW wind turbine system is shown in Fig. 14. At the beginning 1
P o w er co efficien t

t = 0 sec, the reference power was raised to accelerate the wind

turbine. The output power in (b) increased and reached steady 0.5 (b)
state condition at t = 70 sec. At t = 220 sec, the load disturbance
was stepped up to 750 W and a jump can be seen in the output 0
0 50 100 150 200 250 300 350 Time [s]400
power. In each step of the load increase, the controller of the 1000
O u tp u t p o w er [W ]

wind turbine took a few seconds to track the output power until it
matched the reference power. Figure 14 (c) demonstrates the 500 (c)
error between the reference power and output power. Note that in
this experiment, the output power is limited by the dc generator
0
rating which is only 1kW. 0 50 100 150 200 250 300 350 Time [s]400
The response of tip speed ratio and motor speed for the
same condition as in Fig. 14 is shown in Fig. 15. It can be seen
Fig. 16 (a) Tip speed ratio, (b) power coefficient, (c) output
that at 220s both the motor speed and tip speed ratio decreases,
power of induction motor.
as indicated by the characteristic of Fig. 4. Figure 16 illustrates
that the power coefficient increased, when the system load went
up. Figure 17 presents the output torque response for the same
operating conditions as shown in Figure 14. It confirms that the
controller was capable of tracking the reference torque calculated
 O u tp u t to r q u e [N .m ] R efer en ce to r q u e [N .m ]
60 8

W in d sp eed [m /s]
6
40
(a) 4
20 2

0 0
0 50 100 150 200 250 300 350 400 0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 Time [s] 80
Time [s]
60 10

T ip sp eed ra tio
40
(b) 5
20

0 0
0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 Time [s] 80
0 50 100 150 200 250 300 350 Time [s]400
1000

O u tp u t p o w er [W ]
50
E r ro r

500
0 (c)

0
-50 0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80
0 50 100 150 200 250 300 350 400 Time [s]
Time [s]

Fig. 17 Torque response to load increase, (a) reference Fig. 20 The corresponding output power and tip speed ratio
torque, (b) output torque, (c) error between the reference response to the wind speed change (0-77s).
and torques.
6. CONCLUSIONS
An experiment on the tower effect was conducted with the
help of model given in Equation (7), constant load of 130 W, and The development of wind turbine simulator for wind
a constant wind speed of 5 m/s. The result is shown in Figure 18. power plant testing is presented. The developed simulator was
In this experiment, the wind turbine was assumed to have three- implemented by a low-cost, high-performance DSC controller
blades, and the torque ripple occurred every 2π/3 rad. developed on C language. Wind speed can be easily programmed
according to recorded wind speed data, Van Der Hoven model
and manual set up. The advantages of the simulators are that
400 various wind profiles and wind turbines can be incorporated as
Output power [W]

300 desired in the control software and it includes the data acquisition
to verify the control algorithms and display the parameters. The
200
experimental results confirmed the wind turbine simulator can
100 perform satisfactory under steady state wind profile, turbulence
0 and tower effect. The system could provide all necessary
0 100 200 300 400 500 600 700 800 900 1000
Time [s] parameters of the wind turbine system such as wind speed,
8 output torque, torque coefficient, output power, power
Output torque [N.m]

6
coefficient, and tip speed ratio.
4

2
7. REFERENCES
0
0 100 200 300 400 500 600 700 800 900 1000 [1] H. Nam, 1998 “Numerical Simulation of Wind Turbulence
Time [s]
for Time-Domain Response Analysis of Complex
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[5] H. Vihrial, 2002 “Control of Variable Speed Wind

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Technology.
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0 50 100 150 200 250 300 350 400 [7] Thiringer, T.; Dahlberg, J.-A.; 2001 “Periodic Pulsations
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