Publication: Development of an aerodynamic model for a flexible kite for wind power generation
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2015-10
Defense date
2015-10-05
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Tutors
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Abstract
In this bachelor's thesis an Aerodynamic an Structural model have been developed for
the study of a
exible kite. With this model, a designer is able to obtain a preliminary
view of the forces acting on a kite as well as the nal shape of the kite after the equilibrium
of forces is reached.
The project can be clearly divided in two parts: The Aerodynamic model and the
Structural model.
The Aerodynamic model is a 3D Vortex lattice method. The Biot-Savart law was used
to get the
ow- eld around a nite straight vortex line. With the boundary condition
that the air cannot
ow through the kite, the strength of the
ow- eld induced by the
vortices can be computed. Also the Kutta-Joukowski theorem is used to calculate the
force produced by each vortex segment. Once the forces are known, the lift and the induced
drag are also computed. This forces will be used later, together with the structural
model, in order to obtain the equilibrium position of the kite.
The Structural model is obtained applying two conditions: each segment that compose
the kite should be in equilibrium, i.e. the forces and the moments acting on each segment
should be equal to zero. The other condition is that the two tethers come together in one
point. It is indispensable that all the segments in which the kite is divided have the same
length, to ensure the convergence. All of these condition will be explain better in section
3. A remarkable assumption is that the sti ness of the kite is not taken into account.
Both the Aerodynamic model and the Structural one have been developed using Matlab
®.
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Keywords
Kite Control Unit (KCU), Vortex Lattice Method, Structural model, Aerodynamic model, Wind power