Using Pro/E to Design Wind Turbine Blades

1) I don't know pro-e, but there appears to be lots of stuff on youtube.

2) contact your reseller or pro-e. ask directly how to do it..most salespeople will just tell you.. they are getting your upgrade dollars, so it is in their interest to give a bit.

Chris

When I read your requirements I fear that Pro-E is not the perfect environment, Catia might be better.

But Pro-E has a lot of hidden features, making life nice:

You can use formulas/tables to define curves.

These curves can be used to define a blend/surface. (or trajectory)

The blend can be used as the surface of a protrusion.

Experiment a bit, it might be necessary that you need an extrension for what you exactly want.

Define "exact calculation". In other words where are you getting your airfoil section data?

Hooker

Your objective is not for the faint of heart!

You may be best off using the reverse engineering extension in Pro/E. Much depends upon the data you are working with. An "exact" form requires an exact definition which is very difficult to obtain due to the complexities of the shape.

Turbine blades often have twist, sweep and taper. Sometimes the root and tip airfoil definitions are different beyond the demands of taper. Standard airfoil shapes (NACA sections) are rarely used but if so, these are exactly defined by a readily available equation. The definition of the spanwise transition then becomes problematic.

For correct flow over the blade, curvature continuity becomes an issue. Meeting the requirement of curvature continuity while avoiding reflexions (rippling) becomes an art. An industrial design approach manages the shape beauty through position compromises. Aerodynamicists will insist on both positional accuracy and shape "beauty" (curvature continuity with no ripples). In the end, a reasonable compromise must be achieved.

In my opinion, the best Pro/E product for this type of work is the reverse engineering module but this is only 1/10th of the solution. The remainder is covered by training, experience and close collaboration with the end user. Providing meaningful positional/curvature error data becomes a critical exercise. In my experience it takes a few years to develop the expertise for this work, and this work is not well suited to all individuals.

The limits to what should be modeled are the limits to what can be manufactured. I would have a long hard look at the manufacturing process and decide what can be accomplished there. Most times the drafter can easily outperform manufacturing, but what is the point. Unless you are a scientist, and even then, unless you can create the product in the real world, there is little point in being that accurate.

Design with the manufacturing process in mind.

Chris

Actually, turbine blade manufacturing has gotten pretty radical in the last 10 or 15 years with the impact of rapid prototyping. Resins for Stereolithography have allowed blade "lost wax" cores to be designed and created that would be nigh on impossible using the old ways. Especially stuff like hollow core blades that allow for improved heat management.

I got to see some of the early work that Pratt & Whitney did in the 90's when I worked for 3D Systems. They/we were making stuff (not only in aerospace) that was nearly impossible or prohibitively expensive for traditional manufacturing.

Of course in this instance I'm thinking more in the lines of cast turbine blades but the thought could be extrapolated to larger designs.

Hooker

I whine about Design CAD 2000, but it does this sort of thing pretty well. You create as many cross sections as you want with the desired shape, size, and orientation, and then connect them automatically with a smooth patch.

The sections are drawn by plotting the precalculated points (the airfoil ordinates) and then joining the point with a smooth curve. One cross section can be created, and then duplicated, and then distributed along the length of the blade. Each section is scaled as desired for taper (and/or thickness) and rotated for twist.

Can Pro E not do that sort of thing?

It is exactly how I explained how to do it with ProE: draw your different sections and combine them all in one smoot surface.

The power of ProE comes later: you can use the same data to drive production systems that will generate the moulds.

You can drive your sections with insert -> Datum -> offset coordinate system to import points off any spreadsheet. Then use the style feature to generate surfaces with curves and loftlines. I have done a few of these and its a bit tricky but Pro/E is perfectly capable of handling it.

Can anyone help me .......

How to model a wind turbine blade ?

any tutorial for a starter .....

Thanks for helping in advance :)

I seem to say this a lot; maybe I should get a commission

Design foil is a airfoil design software tool that allows you to use any of 1000's of NACA profiles in its library, modify them, find Cd, Cl velocity fields, everything.

Once happy, you just export the section to 'sketch' via one of the cad compatible file formats. If you want a root profile to tip profile - do the sections for each velocity and loft between on CAD (or build it all in excel and import the data)

Mind you, it's horrifically expensive at $49 and takes maybe 2000 seconds to learn.

User-Friendly DesignFOIL Features:

• Quickly analyze airfoils and wing.
• Generate almost any NACA airfoil with a mouse-click.
• Import airfoil coordinate files (.dat & .dxf)
• Import coordinates from DXF files
• Send all data directly to Excel
• New MyAirfoils window saves your work from session to session
• New WingCrafter lets you do wing layout analysis and exports to CAD
• Send airfoil and wing geometries to Gridgen and CMARC
• Camber modification tool & simple flap simulator
• Analyzes quickly
• Mix & Match tool
• In-depth help file with aerodynamics and airfoil primers
• Optimized for wide-screen monitors
• Workflow pattern optimized to save you time
• All NACA standard airfoil engines
• Drag polar display: Classic NACA & Eppler formats
• Export airfoil shapes directly to popular 3D CAD programs.

Download and try out the demo for yourself. It's FREE!

_{^{would you mind to repeat that... you are kind of hard to hear because you are so far away...}}

_{It's them yelling - I just c/p'd canadiansmeh.}

_{An if you lot above, read the OP, it's exactly what is being asked for, 'sketch a foil profile' - not how to operate ProE, or an alternate CAD program, that can't generate a section either. So have 1 more}