Integrated aero-structural optimization of wind turbines

The present work describes methods for the integrated aero-structural optimization of wind turbines. The goal of the algorithms is to identify the structural and aerodynamic design characteristics that achieve the minimum cost of energy for a given wind turbine configuration. Given the strong couplings that exist between aerodynamic and structural design choices, the methods are formulated so as to address both problems simultaneously in an integrated manner, resulting in tools that may help avoid suboptimal solutions or lengthy design loops. All methods considered herein use the same high fidelity multibody aeroservoelastic simulation environment and operate the design according to standard certification guidelines. The methods, however, differ in the way the optimization is conducted, realizing different tradeoffs amongst computational efficiency, generality, level of automation and overall robustness. The proposed formulations are exercised on the design of a conceptual 10 MW horizontal axis wind turbine, illustrating the main characteristics of the various methods.