Effective cooling is required in power generation, processing, and distribution to avoid failure that could occur during operations. As heat loads continue to increase, manufacturers of wind turbines are turning to improve the cooling system to remove high intensity heat loads from many active parts particularly in the generator part. Wind generators need an effective cooling system due to the large amount of heat that is released during power production. Many large wind turbines (more than 5MW rated power) particularly offshore wind turbines where the water is available, heat exchangers with water-air cooling system is used, in which the water is utilized to cool the hot air. This type of heat exchangers are desired, since they are more efficient and reliable than the air-air heat exchangers, which are used in small wind turbines. Because of the growing number of failures that occurred in wind turbine generators due to high generator’s temperatures owing to power losses of generator, applying condition monitoring system on wind generators depending on heat transfer analysis through the heat exchangers of wind generators plays an effective role. This helps avoid failures and maintain wind turbines to be protected. In this paper new methodology has been applied by considering the heat transfer and fluid mechanics analysis through a heat exchanger of wind generator, which uses water to air cooling system. Case study based on data collected from actual measurements demonstrates the adequacy of the proposed model. 

The development and implementation of condition monitoring system become very important for wind industry with the increasing number of failures in wind turbine generators due to over temperature especially in offshore wind turbines where higher maintenance costs than onshore wind farms have to be paid due to their farthest locations. Monitoring the wind generators temperatures is significant and plays a remarkable role in an effective condition monitoring system. Moreover, they can be easily measured and recorded automatically by the Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA) which gives more clarification about their behavior trend. An unexpected increase in component temperature may indicate overload, poor lubrication, or possibly ineffective passive or active cooling. Many techniques are used to reliably predict generator's temperatures to avoid occurrence of failures in wind turbine generators. Multiple Linear Regression Model (MLRM) is a model that can be used to construct the normal operating model for the wind turbine generator temperature and then at each time step the model is used to predict the generator temperature by measuring the correlation between the observed values and the predicted values of criterion variables. Then standard errors of the estimate can be found. The standard error of the estimate indicates how close the actual observations fall to the predicted values on the regression line. In this paper, a new condition-monitoring method based on applying Multiple Linear Regression Model for a wind turbine generator is proposed. The technique is used to construct the normal behavior model of an electrical generator temperatures based on the historical generator temperatures data. Case study built on a data collected from actual measurements demonstrates the adequacy of the proposed model.

Today the use of composite materials in different kinds of applications is accelerating rapidly. Composite materials have become common engineering materials and are designed and manufactured for various application. This paper involves an experimental program including testing the capabilities of hybrid material s (composite and metallic materials) as an energy absorber. The method of approach has been to fabricate and test a series of specimens. The specimens have cylindrical shape; they are fabricated using hand lay-up technique. Hybrid specimens involve two subtypes: metallic cylinder surrounded by three layers of composite cylinder referred as M/C, and three layers of composite cylinder form the internal part surrounded by metallic cylinder referred as C/M (Fig.1). Hybrid model are subjected to lateral quasi static compression load.

In this work, in addition to the 16-corrugation that have been tested, three more models with same dimensions and different corrugation density have been tested too. 18-corrugation, 20-corrugation, and 22-corrugation (RCCT-18, RCCT-20, and RCCT-22) have been investigated. Here, it is wise to mention that all corrugations have the same shape and dimensions. Moreover, 22 corrugations were found the maximum number of corrugations that can be fabricated in the tube circumference. In other words it was impossible to fabricate a tube with more than 22-corrugations at that certain diameter, since all tested composite tubes have the same length and diameter at all testing phases. Results show that corrugation density has an influence on the performance of composite shells as an energy absorber. It has been found that as corrugation density increases, total energy absorption increases.

This research presents the effect of corrugation geometry on the crushing behavior, energy absorption, of woven roving glass fiber/epoxy laminated composite shells. Experimental investigations were carried out on three geometrical different types of composite shells subjected to compressive loadings. The results showed that the loading carrying capability is significantly influenced by corrugation geometry in axial crushing. Load–displacement curve was plotted for all conducted tests

Abstract: This paper presenting the effect of corrugation geometry on the crushing behavior, energy absorption, failure mechanism, and failure mode of woven roving glass fibre/epoxy laminated composite tubes subjected to lateral compression load. A comprehensive experimental program has been carried out on three geometrically different types of composite tubes: radial corrugated composite tubes, cylindrical composite tubes, and corrugated surrounded by cylindrical tubes. The three structures are made of woven roving glass fibre/epoxy 600 g/sqm. All specimens fabricated under the same conditions with a fixed number of layers equal to six.

The characteristics of composite materials are of high importance to engineering applications; therefore the increasing use as a substitute for conventional materials, especially in the field of aircraft and space industries. It is a known fact that researchers use finite element programs for the design and analysis of composite structures, use of symmetrical conditions especially in complicated structures, in the modeling and analysis phase of the design, to reduce processing time, memory size required, and simplifying complicated calculations, as well as considering the response of composite structures to different loading conditions to be identical to that of metallic structures. Finite element methods are a popular method used to analyze composite laminate structures. The design of laminated composite structures includes phases that do not exist in the design of traditional metallic structures, for instance, the choice of possible material combinations is huge and the mechanical properties of a composite structure, which are anisotropic by nature, are created in the design phase with the choice of the appropriate fiber orientations and stacking sequence. The use of finite element programs (conventional analysis usually applied in the case of orthotropic materials) to analysis composite structures especially those manufactured using angle ply laminate techniques or a combination of cross and angle ply techniques, as well considering the loading response of the composite structure to be identical to that of structures made of traditional materials, has made the use of, and the results obtained by using such analysis techniques and conditions questionable. Hence, the main objective of this paper is to highlight and present the results obtained when analyzing and modeling symmetrical conditions as applied to commercial materials and that applied to composite laminates. A comparison case study is carried out using cross-ply and angle-ply laminates which concluded that, if the composition of laminate structure is pure cross-ply, the FEA is well suited for predicting the mechanical response of composite structure using principle of symmetry condition. On the other hand that is not the case for angle-ply or mixed-ply laminate structure.

Modeling of take-off and landing motion for a fixed wing (UAV) is necessary for developing an automatic take off and landing control system (ATOL). Automatic take off and landing system becomes an important system due to wide spread of unmanned aerial vehicles in different applications ranging from intelligence, surveillance, up to missile firing. Automatic take off and landing system reduces damage to an unmanned aerial vehicle and its payload that may be caused by human pilot errors. Furthermore, training human pilot to a sufficient level of skill and experience for takeoff and landing may take several years and significant cost. A human pilot also may impose additional restrictions for UAV operation especially at night time or dusty desert conditions. Although, ATOL adds complexity to the system, it reduces the long run cost and risk caused by takeoff and landing process, and makes UAV takeoff from different runways and at different atmospheric conditions. A mathematical model for takeoff is successfully developed for a small fixed wing UAV. A Matlab/Simulink simulation model is prepared for the ground roll phase, and some simulation results are also shown.

A numerical scheme for computing compressible multi-component flows is examined. The numerical approach is based on a mathematical model that considers interfaces between fluids as numerically diffused zones. The hyperbolic problem is tackled using a high-resolution HLLC scheme on a fixed Eulerian mesh. The scheme for the non-conservative terms is derived to fulfill the interface condition. The results are demonstrated for several one and two-dimensional test cases.

Abstract

This paper presents the quasi-static crushing performance of corrugated composite tube with triangular profile. The idea is to understand the effect of corrugation profile on the energy absorption capability of corrugated composite tube of triangular profile with multi layers. Different corrugated composite tubes of triangular profile have been fabricated by hand lay-up technique using woven roving fiber glass/epoxy. Several quasi-static tests have been conducted. for all six shapes of tested models under same conditions. Results showed that the crushing characteristics and energy absorption is highly affected by corrugation profile.