Embodiments of the present disclosure relate generally to collision avoidance systems, and more particularly to wind turbines with enhanced wildlife collision avoidance.
Renewable energy resources are being increasingly employed as cleaner, more reliable and cost-efficient alternatives to fossil fuels for supplying global energy requirements. Wind energy, in particular, has emerged as one of the most favored renewable energy resources on account of being plentiful, renewable, widely distributed and clean. Generally, wind energy may be harnessed by wind turbines that are designed to produce electrical energy in response to a wide spectrum of wind speeds. These wind turbines may be typically spread across a particular geographical region such that the wind passing over the region may cause blades associated with the wind turbines to rotate. The rotating blades cause a rotor of an associated generator to turn, thus generating electrical power.
Although use of wind turbines has resulted in emission-free power generation and increased fuel diversity, proliferation of wind turbines has negatively affected wildlife, such as birds and bats, in a vicinity of the wind turbines. Bats, for example, are known to forage frequently over both open meadowlands, where larger turbines are likely to be located and over urban areas, which typically house microturbines, due to availability of roosting and foraging sites. Presence of wind turbines in both open and urban areas, thus, has resulted in increased interaction between the bats and the wind turbines.
Typically, bats are echolocating animals that emit acoustic signals and use corresponding echoes to identify and locate objects in an environment. However, echolocation signals emitted by the bats often undergo specular reflection from a surface of a turbine blade and are scattered in a plurality of directions. Thus, only a portion of the reflected signals may reach the bat, while a remaining portion of the reflected signals may be scattered in a plurality of directions. Accordingly, the reflected echolocation signals may fail to provide the bat with a realistic estimate of a size and location of the wind turbine. Such inefficient reflection of the echolocation signals may lead to a collision of the bat with one or more components of the wind turbine.
Generally, efforts to prevent interactions between bats and the wind turbine have focused on risk avoidance and impact mitigation. Risk avoidance, for example, entails conducting surveys prior to construction of the wind turbine to identify and avoid areas with high level of usage by bats. Further, impact mitigation may involve use of deterrent devices or a change in operation of the wind turbine. By way of example, in certain regions, government regulations mandate curtailing operations at specific times, such as during migration season or use of specific rotation speeds. Such restrictions, in turn, curtail power generation operations, which can result in significant economic losses to a wind turbine operator.
Certain other conventional collision avoidance approaches entail the use of electronic devices that actively emit ultrasonic signals that interfere with the echolocation signals. Such active electronic devices, however, not only deter bats, but may also displace the bats from their natural habitat. Additionally, such active deterrent devices are expensive, require external power and degrade upon exposure to environmental elements. Moreover, bats may change their echolocation properties adaptively based on changing conditions, thus rendering the active devices ineffective.
Accordingly, a cost-effective system that provides efficient wildlife collision avoidance without disrupting the natural habitat of the bats or the wind turbine operations is desirable.
In accordance with an exemplary aspect of the present disclosure, a collision avoidance system is presented. The collision avoidance system includes a support and a rotor coupled to the support such that at least one of the support and the rotor incorporate one or more passive retroreflectors. Particularly, the passive retroreflectors are designed to reflect acoustic waves corresponding to a designated frequency range back to a source of the acoustic waves in a non-random pattern.
In accordance with another aspect of the present disclosure, a wind turbine is disclosed. The wind turbine includes a tower, a rotor coupled to the tower and a nacelle coupled to the rotor. Further, at least one of the tower, the rotor and the nacelle include one or more acoustic retroreflectors designed to reflect acoustic waves corresponding to a designated frequency range back to a source of the acoustic waves.
These and other features, and aspects of embodiments of the present disclosure will become better understood when the following detailed description is read with reference to the accompanying drawings in which like characters represent like parts throughout the drawings, wherein:
The following description presents exemplary embodiments of a wind turbine system with enhanced wildlife collision avoidance capabilities. Particularly, embodiments illustrated hereinafter disclose a system that includes one or more passive acoustic retroreflection devices for mitigating collisions by echolocating animals such as bats with wind turbines. As used herein, the term “passive retroreflectors” corresponds to acoustic retroreflectors that reflect acoustic signals of specific frequencies based on their geometrical properties and without use of an external source of power.
Although exemplary embodiments of the present system are described in the context of a wind turbine, it will be appreciated that use of the embodiments of the present system in various other contexts is also contemplated. By way of example, certain embodiments of the present disclosure may be employed in underwater systems for preventing collisions by underwater animals with components of the underwater systems such as water turbine impellers. An exemplary environment that is suitable for practicing various implementations of the present system is discussed in the following sections with reference to
Specifically,
By way of example, in one embodiment, the wind turbine 100 may include a tower 102 and a power unit 104 configured to generate electricity. In certain embodiments, the tower 102 may operate to elevate the power unit 104 to a height above a designated ground or sea level at which fast moving wind passes across the wind turbine 100. To that end, the tower 102 may include a structural beam that is disposed, for example, substantially perpendicular to a base or foundation 106 of the wind turbine 100. In one example, the tower 102 may be a cantilevered tower having a first end 108 rigidly coupled to a base or foundation 106 and a free or unsupported second end 110 configured to support a load presented by the power unit 104.
In certain embodiments, the power unit 104 may include one or more sub-units such as a nacelle 112 and a rotor 114. The rotor 114 may be operatively coupled to a rotary shaft 120 in the nacelle 112, for example, via a bearing assembly 122. Moreover, the rotor 114 may include a central hub 124 and a plurality of blades 126 that project outwards from the central hub 124 at circumferentially distributed locations. Although the exemplary embodiment of the wind turbine 100 illustrated in
Further, the blades 126 may be configured to interact with passing airflow to produce a lift that causes the central hub 124 to rotate about a longitudinal axis 128, thus converting the kinetic energy of the wind into mechanical energy. The mechanical energy generated by the blades 126 of the rotor 114 may further be converted to electrical energy by a generator 116 housed in the nacelle 112. It may be noted that only a few components of the wind turbine 100 are described with reference to
Generally, multiple wind turbines, such as the wind turbine 100 of
Accordingly, the wind turbine 100 includes one or more acoustic retroreflectors 130 to prevent or reduce collisions by wildlife with the wind turbine 100. Particularly, in one embodiment, the acoustic retroreflectors 130 may be disposed on the wind turbine 100 to significantly enhance reflection of the echolocation signals from the surface of one or more components of the wind turbine 100. Although the acoustic retroreflectors 130 are shown as being disposed on the blades 126 and the tower 102, they may instead or additionally be mounted on other components, such as the nacelle 112, where a possibility of collision of the bats is estimated to be high.
Further, in one embodiment, the size, shape, number and spatial distribution of the acoustic retroreflectors 130 may be selected based on the known behavior of specific species of bats that are typically known to use regions near the wind turbine 100. Certain structural and functional aspects of the acoustic retroreflectors 130 are described in greater detail with reference to
In one embodiment, acoustic waves such as echolocation signals 206 may be reflected from the mutually perpendicular flat plates 202 and 204 such that the reflected echolocation signals 208 travel along a plane parallel to the incoming echolocation signals 206. Particularly, the echolocation signals 208 are reflected such that they are concentrated in the direction of the echolocation source, such as a bat. The concentration of the reflected echolocation signals 208 prevents scattering, thereby maximizing the intensity of the reflected echolocation signals 208 that reaches the echolocation source to aid in accurate interpretation of a distance to the wind turbine. Although the embodiment of the acoustic retroreflector 200 illustrated in
Further,
In an alternative embodiment, however, a dihedral or a trihedral-shaped depression of a particular size may be sculpted or impressed in a surface of the blade 406 to form the acoustic retroreflector 408. In certain further embodiments, the acoustic retroreflector 408 may include solid reflectors mechanically attached to the surface of the blade 406, for example, using glue or mechanical fasteners such as screws.
In a presently contemplated embodiment, the acoustic retroreflector 408 may be associated with the wind turbine such that the echolocation signals 402 are incident on a first surface 410 of the acoustic retroreflector 408. The trihedral arrangement of the acoustic retroreflector 408 causes the echolocation signals 402 incident on the first surface 410 to be reflected off a second surface 412 and a third surface (not shown in
In certain embodiments, reflection of the echolocation signal 402 may be further enhanced by using a hard non-porous material on the surface of the acoustic retroreflector 408 that reflects sound waves without significantly absorbing the incident acoustic energy. To that end, in one embodiment, the acoustic retroreflector 408 may include a material, such as aluminum or fiber-reinforced epoxy (FRP) having a reflection coefficient of at least 0.7. Further, in certain embodiments, the acoustic retroreflector 408 may be coated with an acoustically transparent material such as Mylar. In certain other embodiments, however, the material of the acoustic retroreflector 408 may be the same as the material of the blade 406 to preserve the structural integrity or aerodynamic properties of the blade 406.
Additionally, in accordance with certain aspects of the present disclosure, one or more geometrical properties of the acoustic retroreflector 408 may be selected such that the bats are able to identify the reflected acoustic waves as being different from naturally occurring reflections from trees and prey. By way of example, these properties may include size, shape, depth, orientation, location and spatial distribution of the acoustic retroreflector 408 over a surface of the wind turbine. Particularly, the geometrical properties of the acoustic retroreflector 408 may be selected to maximize reflection efficiency in specific frequency ranges, while at the same time minimizing the negative airflow impact to the turbine blade. In one embodiment, the frequency ranges may be chosen to coincide with the echolocation signals of a target bat species.
Further,
In
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In certain embodiments, in addition to the orientation, an appropriate shape, size, position and distribution of the acoustic retroreflectors on the wind turbine may also be selected based on certain behavioral attributes of bats such as roosting, foraging, hibernation and migratory patterns. The behavioral attributes, for example, may also include altitude or direction of flight, path of flight, rate of movement, rate of attraction or collision avoidance, location of attraction or collision avoidance and composition of species. In one embodiment, the behavioral attributes may be evaluated for determining the appropriate shape, size, position and distribution of the acoustic retroreflectors on the wind turbine that may allow retroreflection of echolocation frequencies corresponding to one or more targeted species of bats.
By way of example, if a target species of bats is known to forage at lower altitudes, the acoustic retroreflectors may be incorporated into the tower of the wind turbine at lower elevations. Similarly, the acoustic retroreflectors may be distributed along the surface of the wind turbine at determined distances to enhance a probability of incidence and retroreflection of the echolocation signals. In one embodiment, for example, the acoustic retroreflectors may be disposed every ten inches along the length of a turbine blade to aid in retroreflection of the echolocation signals with greater signal strength in a pattern that may be interpreted by the bats as an obstruction. Generally, the acoustic retroreflectors may be distributed evenly or further apart, or grouped in clusters of two or more at a wider separation over different parts of the wind turbine to allow the bats to distinguish the wind turbine from naturally occurring reflectors in the environment. To that end, in one embodiment, the acoustic retroreflectors may be distributed with regularity and repetition over the surface of the wind turbine such that the bats interpret the resulting regular and repetitive reflection of the acoustic waves as an obstruction different from the natural reflectors that are typically randomly distributed.
Use of the acoustic retroreflectors in accordance with exemplary aspects of the present disclosure, thus, provide an efficient technique for enhancing the reflection of acoustic signals back to the bats to aid in better echolocation. Particularly, use of the passive acoustic retroreflectors, such as described herein above, obviate use of external power sources and may be retrofit to existing wind turbines.
Further, the acoustic retroreflectors may provide enhanced echolocation by allowing customization of a shape, size, location and spatial distribution of the acoustic retroreflectors based on specific echolocation frequencies of targeted bat species. Particularly, by allowing for a reflection of the echolocation signal at higher amplitudes, the acoustic retroreflectors may provide bats with a longer response time, thus, preventing collisions that may result in injury to bats. Accordingly, use of the acoustic retroreflectors may aid in preserving endangered species of bats and biological diversity in regions surrounding the wind turbines.
Although embodiments of the present system are described with reference to a wind turbine, the present system may also be used in certain other structures such as meteorological towers or marine systems for enhanced collision avoidance. By way of example, acoustic retroreflectors such as the acoustic retroreflectors 400, 506 or 602 of
It may be noted that although specific features of various embodiments of the present systems may be shown in or described with respect to only certain drawings and not in others, this is for convenience only. It is to be understood that the described features, structures, or characteristics may be combined or used interchangeably in any suitable manner in the various embodiments, for example, to construct additional assemblies and techniques for enhanced collision avoidance.
While only certain features of the present disclosure have been illustrated and described herein, many modifications and changes will occur to those skilled in the art. It is, therefore, to be understood that the appended claims are intended to cover all such modifications and changes as fall within the true spirit of the present disclosure.