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Sandia Technology logo A quarterly research and development magazine.

Fall 2006
Volume 8, No. 3

SANDIA TECHNOLOGY

Determining wind turbine efficiency — continued

The GE turbine was equipped with four ATLAS II units, collecting a total of 67 measurements, including 12 to characterize the inflow, eight to characterize the operational state of the turbine, and 24 to characterize the structural response. The system collected data continuously, 24 hours a day, seven days a week. The four units were placed at various locations on the turbine, and a GPS time stamp was used to maintain synchronization between the units. All data streams were merged at the base of the turbine, where ATLAS II software compressed the data and stored them on a local computer.

Jose Zayas
ATLAS II project lead Jose Zayas with advanced blades that will be tested at Bushland, Texas.
Data collection efforts continued for four months, with more than 17,000 data records collected, for a total of 285 Gigabytes of data. Because the turbine was located at a remote site, the data were transmitted to NREL via a satellite link and later passed to Sandia. In places where there is access to the Internet, the data can be monitored in real time.

The Texas Tech project began in August with an environmental monitoring box placed on a 200-meter meteorological tower at a test site near the campus in Lubbock. The university is expected to eventually erect a utility-size wind turbine. The ATLAS II will be used to collect data from the turbine.

Sandia also is planning three experiments using the ATLAS II to monitor the performance of three advanced blade designs on a test turbine it operates in conjunction with the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s research station in Bushland, Texas.

Technical Contact: Jose Zayas (505) 284-9446, jrzayas@sandia.gov
Media Contact: Chris Burroughs (505) 844-0948, coburro@sandia.gov