QBlade is a public source, cross-platform

simulation software Simulation software is based on the process of modeling a real phenomenon with a set of mathematical formulas. It is, essentially, a program that allows the user to observe an operation through simulation without actually performing that operation ...

for

wind turbine A wind turbine is a device that converts the kinetic energy of wind into electrical energy. Hundreds of thousands of large turbines, in installations known as wind farms, now generate over 650 gigawatts of power, with 60 GW added each year. ...

blade design and aerodynamic simulation.D. Marten,'' et al''., "QBlade: a modern tool for the aeroelastic simulation of wind turbines" PhD Thesis, TU Berlin, 2020. Availabl
here
Accessed 14 August 2022/ It comes with a user-friendly

graphical user interface The GUI ( "UI" by itself is still usually pronounced . or ), graphical user interface, is a form of user interface that allows users to interact with electronic devices through graphical icons and audio indicator such as primary notation, ins ...

(GUI) based on Qt.

Overview

QBlade is a public source wind turbine calculation

software Software is a set of computer programs and associated documentation and data. This is in contrast to hardware, from which the system is built and which actually performs the work. At the lowest programming level, executable code consist ...

, distributed under th
Academic Public License
The

is seamlessly integrated into XFOIL, an

airfoil An airfoil (American English) or aerofoil (British English) is the cross-sectional shape of an object whose motion through a gas is capable of generating significant lift, such as a wing, a sail, or the blades of propeller, rotor, or turbin ...

design and analysis tool. The purpose of this software is the

design A design is a plan or specification for the construction of an object or system or for the implementation of an activity or process or the result of that plan or specification in the form of a prototype, product, or process. The verb ''to design' ...

and aerodynamic simulation of wind turbine blades. The integration in XFOIL allows for the user to rapidly design custom

airfoils An airfoil (American English) or aerofoil (British English) is the cross-sectional shape of an object whose motion through a gas is capable of generating significant lift, such as a wing, a sail, or the blades of propeller, rotor, or turbine. ...

and compute their performance curves,

Extrapolating In mathematics, extrapolation is a type of estimation, beyond the original observation range, of the value of a variable on the basis of its relationship with another variable. It is similar to interpolation, which produces estimates between know ...

the performance data to a range of 360°

Angle of attack In fluid dynamics, angle of attack (AOA, α, or \alpha) is the angle between a reference line on a body (often the chord line of an airfoil) and the vector representing the relative motion between the body and the fluid through which it is m ...

, and directly integrate them into a wind turbine rotor simulation. The

, including a custom dnymaic graph class for data visualizations makes this software accessible to a large potential user community. QBlade is especially adequate for teaching, as it provides a ’hands-on’ feeling for

Horizontal-axis wind turbine A wind turbine is a device that converts the kinetic energy of wind into electrical energy. Hundreds of thousands of large turbines, in installations known as wind farms, now generate over 650 gigawatts of power, with 60 GW added each year. Wi ...

(HAWT) rotor design and shows all the fundamental relationships between blade twist, blade chord, section

performance, turbine control, power and load curves in an easy and intuitive way. QBlade also includes post processing of conducted rotor simulations and gives deep insight into all relevant blade and rotor variables.

Development History

QBlade's development was started in 2009 at the

Hermann Föttinger Hermann Föttinger (9 February 1877 in Nuremberg – 28 April 1945 in Berlin) was a German engineer and inventor. In the course of his life he submitted over 100 patent applications, but he is most notable for inventing fluid coupling. Career ...

Institute of TU Berlin. The 1st online version, released in 2010, was received with positive remarks which led to the continuation of the development. After the integration of a turbulent wind field generator, a Vertical Axis Wind Turbine (VAWT) module and a structural Euler-Bernoulli beam module (QFEM) an updated version (v0.8) of the software was released on 9 May 2014. An updated stable version (v0.96) was released in August 2015. This included a new aerodynamic module which replaced the BEM of QBlade with a new advanced Lifting Line Theory (LLT) module. Furthermore, a Free Wake Vortex model was implemented for the accurate representation of the near and far wake of the turbine. A new version of QBlade was released in August 2022. QBlade Community Edition (QBlade-CE 2.0.4) includes all functionality that is required for the aero-servo-hydro-elastic simulation of wind turbines. For the structural dynamics modelling QBlade integrates the

Project Chrono Project Chrono is a physics engine developed by University of Wisconsin-Madison and University of Parma and members of its open source community. It supports simulating rigid body dynamics, rigid and soft body dynamics, collision detection, vehic ...

multi-physics library.

Functionality

The functionality of QBlade includes the following features: Rotors

* Airfoil generation and modification * Polar generation and extrapolation * Rotor design (HAWT and VAWT) including active elements (such as flaps) and damaged blade stations * Propeller design * Steady state BEM analysis, fully parallelized parametric BEM * Structural turbine definition powered by Project Chrono * Cable elements to model blade cables, guy wires or mooring lines. * Custom substructure definition (monopile, jacket, floaters) * Seamless integration of NREL’s TurbSim for turbulent windfield generation * Linear wave generator (regular, irregular, custom and pre-defined spectra * Controller Integration (Bladed style, DTU style, TUB style) * Aero-servo-hydro-elastic wind turbine simulations * Streamlined ASCII based import / export functionality for all objects in QBlade * IEC compliant DLC pre-processor * Multi turbine simulation * Multi rotor turbine definition * Full parallelization of aero-hydro-elastic simulations * Command line interface * Software in loop interface * Modal analysis capabilities

License

QBlade is distributed under th
Academic Public License
It is maintained and continuously developed at the

Institute of TU Berlin (Chair of Fluid Dynamics) and a
QBlade.org

Validation

QBlade has been successfully validated against the WT_Perf Blade Element Momentum Theory code of NWTC. Furthermore, it showed good agreement with the experimental performance data measured at the

NASA The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA ) is an independent agency of the US federal government responsible for the civil space program, aeronautics research, and space research. NASA was established in 1958, succeedin ...

Ames Research Center The Ames Research Center (ARC), also known as NASA Ames, is a major NASA research center at Moffett Federal Airfield in California's Silicon Valley. It was founded in 1939 as the second National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA) labo ...

wind tunnel during the

National Renewable Energy Laboratory The National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) in the US specializes in the research and development of renewable energy, energy efficiency, energy systems integration, and sustainable transportation. NREL is a federally funded research an ...

10m Wind Turbine Testing campaign, NREL 10-m Wind Turbine Testing in NASA Ames 80'x120' Wind Tunnel. QBlade validation

References

External links

QBlade Website

Software Download

Users Forum

Documentation

Chair of Fluid Dynamics at the TU Berlin
{{CAE software Wind turbines Aerodynamics Engineering software that uses Qt Computer-aided engineering software for Linux