YAW CONTROL IN WIND MILLS

SIMULATION OF YAW CONTROL IN WIND MILLS

OBJECTIVE The sole aim of our project is to develop a very efficient yet a safety measure to protect the wind turbine from the yaw control strategy. Aim also focuses on developing an efficient variable speed generator so as to attain the maximum possible performance of the wind turbine. INTRODUCTION The current world is facing serious threats not only from the nature but also due to over utilization of the available resources. This has led to severe energy crisis and power quality problems. It has led mankind to utilize the renewable resources to a larger extent as possible. One of the most promising and most employed is WIND ENERGY. Wind energy is the most prominent and available one. This energy is being tapped by many countries. The device which is used to convert this enormous wind energy to the form which mankind can use is WINDMILL. ABSTRACT Wind mills being the most employed renewable energy conversion device its been into various researches and developments. One of the fields of research is to safeguard the wind turbine from any accident due to cable twisting and also to obtain the maximum energy conversion from the mill. These both problems rely on yaw control system. Our proposed solution aims at yaw control, minimizing the yaw error and also to ensure that the cables dont get twisted due to prolonged rotation of the turbine in a particular direction. Another area is to design a variable speed generator. This generator is required so that even though the wind velocity varies the optimum usage of the wind turbines generator is achieved. This generator must operate in a wide range so as to accommodate the possible wind velocities.

YAW CONTROL IN WIND MILLS

WINDMILL COMPONENTS

The nacelle includes: An outer frame protecting machinery from the external environment An internal frame supporting and distributing weight of machinery A power train to transmit energy and to increase shaft speeds A generator to convert mechanical energy into electricity A yaw drive to rotate (slew) the nacelle on the tower Electronics to control and monitor operation The rotor includes: Blades, which are generally made of glass-reinforced fiber up to 50m in length. Lighter and stronger carbon fibers are being used in the larger blades. Extenders attach the blades to the central hub Pitch drives to control the angle of the blades The rotor typically has three blades because that number provides the best balance of high rotation speed, load balancing, and simplicity. The tower includes: Rolled steel tubes connected in series Flanges and bolts joining each section A concrete base serving as a stable foundation for the turbine assembly

YAW CONTROL IN WIND MILLS Concrete segmented towers and hybrid steel/concrete towers may also be used for large turbines in cases where steel tower section transportation is difficult. YAW CONTROL This control orients the turbine continuously along the direction of wind flow. In small machines this is achieved with a tail-vane. In large machines this can be achieved using motorized control systems activated either by a fan-tail (a small turbine mounted perpendicular to the main turbine) or, in case of wind farms, by a centralized instrument for the detection of the wind direction. It is also possible to achieve yaw control without any additional mechanism, simply by mounting the turbine downwind so the thrust force automatically pushes the turbine in the direction of the wind. The yaw control mechanism can also be used for speed control- the rotor is made to face away from the wind direction at the high wind speeds, thereby reducing the mechanical power. However, this method is seldom used where pitch control is available, because of the stresses it produces on the rotor blades. Yawing often produces large noise and it is desirable to restrict the yawing rate in large machines to reduce the noise. A wind turbine accident is that it could continue yawing in the same direction. Electrical cables carry the current from the generator down through the structural tower. These cables could become twisted if the turbine accidently keeps yawing in the same direction more than one rotation. Wind turbines are equipped with an engineered safety feature consisting of a cable twist counter which informs the controller when it becomes necessary to untwist the power cables. It is connected to a circuit breaker which is activated if the cables become too twisted and brakes the yaw rotation mechanism. CABLE TWIST COUNTER A particular wind turbine design required two yaw sensor functions yaw angular position and cable twist alarms. The latter prevents the internal power cables from over-twisting and potential damage. When the turbine reaches either of the CW or CCW cable twist limits, the system must then brake to prevent further rotation and also trigger the yaw motor drive to return the system to its center position.

YAW CONTROL IN WIND MILLS In a traditional windmill, the rotation of the cap is driven by the fantail, acting through a worm wheel on cogging around the top perimeter of the tower. This approach could be retained in a windmill that was converted to generate electricity. However, there is a risk that, over a long period of time, the cap may make several complete revolutions and any flexible cables going between the cap and tower would be damaged. There is also concern that the traditional fantail mechanism is not entirely reliable and can occasionally lead to a windmill being back-winded, which can cause serious damage.

Most modern wind turbines have electric motors to drive the yaw. A wind vane on top of the nacelle provides the control signals via the central controller. This controller also keeps track of how many full revolutions have been made so that it can, if necessary, unwind the flexible cables from the nacelle. An electric yaw drive could certainly be used in a converted windmill. It would solve the cable-winding problem and should be reliable, except if the electrical connection to the grid has been lost. The required electric motor would be small and readily accommodated and the necessary control system straightforward. VARIABLE SPEED GENERATORS For fixed-rpm machines, there is only one wind velocity on the turbines power curve (power versus wind speed) at which the tip-speed ratio is optimum because there is only one wind speed exactly one seventh (an example) of the blade tip speed. Clearly, unless the wind regime at a particular site is highly peaked at exactly that wind velocity, the wind turbine will often be operating off of its optimum performance, and not extracting the maximum power from the wind.

YAW CONTROL IN WIND MILLS A variable-speed design can remedy this situation. With a wind turbine that can produce power over a continuous range of rotor speeds, a machine can be made to operate constantly at or near its optimum tip-speed ratio. By doing this, the turbine, depending on turbine aerodynamics and wind regime, will on average collect up to 10% more annual energy, This can yield a significant revenue increase over a 20- or 30-year life of operation.