Green wind sweeps vigorously across the shore of the Bohai Sea. Amid the rumbling of cranes, multiple white impellers were lifted to a height of 145 meters, achieving a perfect "combination" with the generator set hub. Recently, the 16MW "Sea Eagle" platform for deep and far sea, which was developed independently by WINDEY, was successfully hoisted in Dongying, Shandong Province, adding another "Marine Exploration Weapon" for China's wind power industry to march into the deep blue sea.
All-around Testing to Inherit the "Reliable DNA" of the Generator Set
At the inception phase of R&D, WINDEY worked out an all-around and multi-level testing plan for the complicated and volatile offshore environment. During one year of all-around performance test to the "Sea Eagle" generator set platform, the development team simulated the transmission system’s multiple complex working conditions, conducted long-term fatigue test, closely monitored the operating status of components such as gears and bearings, and accurately collected and analyzed data on vibration, temperature, and lubrication. Meanwhile, the team kept testing the aerodynamic performance and structural strength of the blades, optimized the blade design by combining wind tunnel test with real loading test, making the blades efficiently capture wind under different wind conditions while ensuring the blade safety and reliability and avoiding fatigue damage caused by long-term stress. Besides that, the team performed thousands of pitch and yaw action tests to check the generator set’s response speed and control accuracy, ensuring that the generator set can quickly and accurately make adjustments in case of sudden changes in wind speed and wind direction, and maintain stable operation, which will alleviate the impact of external environment changes on power generation efficiency and on equipment.
Also, WINDEY put efforts in building a floating hybrid model that integrates the coordinated control of "Generator Set- Foundation-Mooring", organized wind, wave, and current model tests under operating and survival conditions, simulated various complex marine environmental conditions, tested the dynamic responses of floating wind turbines, and proactively discovered and resolved potential bottlenecks and headaches in the real operation of the generator set, providing strong technical support for the safe launch of the generator set.
Led by Sci-tech Innovation, Vowing to Soar High across the "Deep and Far Sea"
Aiming at the new battlefield "Deep and Far Sea" and conforming to the industry trend “Development of Large-scale Wind Turbines”, WINDEY accurately located the development needs and went all out to develop the 16MW "Sea Eagle" platform with a series of proprietary IPRs and key/core technologies. To address large-scale generator sets’ common problems such as the aero-elastic stability design for 100-meter flexible blade, the development of high-load energy conversion system, and the precise control over unbalanced load of ultra-large wind turbine, WINDEY bravely made inroads into the “Depopulated Zone” of technology, took the lead in making breakthroughs in lightweight blade, energy conversion system, and control technology, and put these technological breakthroughs into practice on the "Sea Eagle" platform, achieving full coverage of medium and high wind speeds in the deep and far sea--
- High-performance lightweight blade design
Creatively brought forth the collaborative multi-objective optimization design method for efficient, stable, and lightweight blade, overcame key technologies such as high-performance aerodynamics, aero-elastic stability optimization, flutter suppression, and collaborative optimal design of ultra-long flexible blade, successfully achieved the lightweight development of ultra-long flexible carbon fiber blade, improved wind energy utilization efficiency and blade reliability, reduced material costs and generator set loads, and enhanced the performance and stability of the entire machine.
- High-torque density transmission system design
Innovated in the integrated design method for high-torque density transmission of gearboxes and high-efficiency energy conversion of generator set, built a compact coupling simulation model, made breakthroughs in technologies such as high-torque-bearing transmission, multi-field coupling efficient energy conversion, and all-in-one integration, significantly improved torque density and power generation performance, reduced the size of the generator set, alleviated component wear, raised energy conversion efficiency, and promoted the development of wind turbines towards high power and high efficiency.
- First-ever weak damping stability control technology
First invented the precise control for dynamic loads and stable operation of large-capacity wind turbines with weak damping, built a multi-physical field simulation control and decoupling model, analyzed the system’s dynamic response, revealed the frequency coupling relationship, made breakthroughs in technologies such as multi-field coupling simulation, precise load control, and stable control, brought down both the extreme load and the fatigue load by 10% or more, extended the generator set’s service life, ensured the operation stability, improved the adaptability to complex working conditions, and reduced the operation and maintenance costs.
From its launch to its successful hoisting, the "Sea Eagle" has been increasingly perfected in performance and reliability. So far, localization of key components has been achieved, and multiple closed-loop tests has been performed and passed. It will strongly guide China's wind power development to march into the deep blue sea.
