Nano Fluids for Improving Efficiency in Wind Turbine Cooling System

Abstract:

In order to reduce the entry of moisture, salt, sand and other external contaminations into the nacelle and also to reduce the fan noise which reaches the exterior, in this work a study of an innovative cooling system for off-shore wind turbine has been carried out. The new cooling technique is based on the use of nanofluids (engineered colloidal suspensions of nanoparticles in a base fluid). Nanofluids allow to increase the thermal conductivity of fluids and so to reduce the heat exchange surface and the heat transfer fluid flow rate due to the increased heat capacity. To reduce the amount of nanofluids circulating in the cooling system, the performance of a two-stage cooling circuit has been investigated. The first circuit takes the heat out of the generator and of the accessories whereas the second circuit, coupled with the first via an heat exchanger, dissipates the heat into the ambient. For the second circuit two options have been investigated. In the first solution the waste heat is dispersed using the tower as dissipator whereas in the second option the waste heat is exchanged with a titanium heat exchanger using marine water as heat transfer fluid.Both solutions assure high efficiency of heat exchange, long technical life expectancy and limited maintenance requirements.Keywords: Wind turbine, nanofluid, cooling system.

• Periodical: Advanced Materials Research (Volumes 984-985)
• Pages: 784-791
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.4028/www.scientific.net/AMR.984-985.784
• Online since: July 2014
• Authors: C. P. Christin Raj*, S.A. Ananthapuri Surendran, B. Amjathkhan, J.Antony Baksi Metilda, S.Eben Devaraj, Elango Aristotle
• Keywords: Cooling System, Nanofluid, Wind Turbine (WT)

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