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Copyright by Krystian Amadeusz Zimowski 2012 The Thesis Committee for Krystian Amadeusz Zimowski Certifies that this is the approved version of the following thesis: Next Generation Wind Energy Harvester to Power Bridge Health Monitoring Systems APPROVED BY SUPERVISING COMMITTEE: Supervisor: Richard H. Crawford Co-supervisor: Kristin L. Wood Next Generation Wind Energy Harvesting to Power Bridge Health Monitoring Systems by Krystian Amadeusz Zimowski, B.S.M.E. Thesis Presented to the Faculty of the Graduate School of The University of Texas at Austin in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Master of Science in Engineering The University of Texas at Austin May 2012 Dedication This thesis is first of all dedicated to my parents, who sacrificed everything for me and for my education. Acknowledgements I would like to acknowledge Dr. Kristin Wood, Dr. Richard Crawford, and Dr. Sharon Wood, for allowing me to work on such a fantastic research project and for mentoring me throughout my graduate studies at The University of Texas at Austin. I am grateful that the National Science Foundation and the National Institute for Standards and Technology (NIST) Technology Innovation Program (TIP) provided funds to address the critical issue of bridge health monitoring systems. I would like also extend a personal thank you to Dr. Dan Jensen at the United States Air Force Academy for granting me the funding to work on this project through a National Science Foundation (NSF) grant for improving student learning using finite element learning modules. Finally, I would like to extend a personal thanks to my fellow mechanical engineers with whom I worked on this project: Sumedh Inamdar, Eric Dierks, and Travis McEvoy. May 4, 2012 v Abstract Next Generation Wind Energy Harvester to Power Bridge Health Monitoring Systems Krystian Amadeusz Zimowski, M.S.E. The University of Texas at Austin, 2012 Supervisor: Richard H. Crawford The research reported in this thesis is part of a project to develop a remote wireless sensing network for monitoring the health of highway bridges. Remote health monitoring that does not require direct human observation has many advantages in terms of cost and increased productivity. However, bridges that cannot be easily connected to the power grid require alternative means of acquiring power. This thesis describes the design of a wind energy harvester to power a particular component in the sensor network, the wireless router. The work discussed in this thesis provides a review of relevant literature and development of a detailed analytical modeling of wind turbine behavior. The analytical model provides key information on sizing generators and choosing appropriate wind turbine dimensions to provide the required amount of power. The analytical model also distinguishes the performance of vertical and horizontal axis wind turbines. The model is verified through design and testing of a first generation prototype vi and benchmarking of a commercially available turbine. Based on these results, the design of the next generation wind harvesting system is described. A new methodology to design non-destructive attachment systems is also discussed. vii Table of Contents LIST OF TABLES ............................................................................................................... X LIST OF FIGURES ........................................................................................................... XIII CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION ............................................................................................ 1 1.1 Project Description and Pain ................................................................................. 1 1.2 Challenges and Opportunities ............................................................................... 7 1.3 Hypothesis and Research Objectives .................................................................... 9 1.4 Organization of Thesis .......................................................................................... 9 CHAPTER 2: REVIEW OF LITERATURE............................................................................ 11 2.1 Introduction ......................................................................................................... 11 2.2 What is the current design space of wind turbine? How does one categorize them based on aerodynamic performance and function? ................................................... 12 2.3 What is the current state-of-the-art technology for small scale wind turbines and residential applications? ............................................................................................ 25 2.4 Is it more optimal from an electricity generation and cost standpoint to have many smaller turbines or one larger one? ................................................................. 32 2.5 What efforts have been made to optimize blade design for a given wind turbine? ................................................................................................................................... 34 2.6 How does one decide upon the type and size of generator for wind turbines? What are the key specifications to consider? ............................................................ 39 2.7 Discussion ........................................................................................................... 45 CHAPTER 3: ANALYTICAL MODELING OF WIND TURBINES ........................................... 47 3.1 Motivation ........................................................................................................... 47 3.2 Identifying Key Requirements, Assumptions and Equations ............................. 48 3.3 Model Simulation................................................................................................ 54 3.4 Discussion ........................................................................................................... 73 CHAPTER 4: PROTOTYPE DEVELOPMENT AND EXPERIMENTATION ................................ 79 4.1 Motivation ........................................................................................................... 79 4.2 Identifying Requirements and Constraints.......................................................... 79 4.3 Design and Construction of the Alpha Prototype ............................................... 81 4.4 Experimentation of Alpha Prototype .................................................................. 90 4.5 Discussion ......................................................................................................... 102 CHAPTER 5: NEXT GENERATION WIND TURBINE DESIGN ........................................... 105 5.1 Motivation ......................................................................................................... 105 5.2 Commercial Turbine Benchmarking................................................................. 105 5.3 Design of Next Generation Wind Turbine System ........................................... 116 5.4 Discussion.. ....................................................................................................... 133 CHAPTER 6: NEXT GENERATION ATTACHMENT SYSTEM ............................................ 135 6.1 Motivation ......................................................................................................... 135 6.2 Attachment Methodology ................................................................................. 135 6.3 Adaptation of Methodology .............................................................................. 140 viii 6.4 Attachment Design Experiment and Results .................................................... 145 6.5 Final Attachment Design .................................................................................. 147 6.6 Discussion ......................................................................................................... 149 CHAPTER 7: CONCLUSIONS AND FUTURE WORK ......................................................... 150 7.1 Research Findings ............................................................................................. 150 7.2 Next Steps in the Research ............................................................................... 153 7.3 Future Work ...................................................................................................... 155 APPENDIX A: DYNAMIC WIND TURBINE BEHAVIOR CODE .......................................... 157 APPENDIX B: DIMENSION DRAWINGS .......................................................................... 164 APPENDIX C: FIRST GENERATION PROTOTYPE BILL OF MATERIALS ............................ 165 APPENDIX D: FIRST GENERATION PROTOTYPE PICTURES ............................................ 167 APPENDIX E: POWER MODELING CODE ....................................................................... 170 APPENDIX F: MECHANICAL ATTACHMENT PRINCIPLES ............................................... 175 APPENDIX G: NEXT GENERATION WIND ENERGY HARVESTER ................................... 178 REFERENCES ................................................................................................................ 179 VITA ............................................................................................................................ 185 ix List of Tables Table 1.1: Power and energy consumption for test scenarios. ..................................... 6 Table 1.2: Functional requirements for the energy harvester. ....................................