Ansys Enables Complex Safety Design for Vestas Wind Turbine Controllers

Vestas extended its use of Ansys simulation across its entire product chain to help it create safer wind turbine control solutions. Ansys solutions enabled a more complex wind turbine control system design. 

Wind turbine controllers are responsible for optimizing power performance and preventing component damage across the range of wind conditions, according to Ansys. Instead of relying on third-party programmable logic controllers (PLCs), Vestas wanted to integrate more safety capabilities into a system design, with the flexibility to execute safety functions in more distributed, complex ways. To be successful, the Vestas team needed to address complex sensor fusion (merging data from multiple sensors) and create control algorithms requiring more system power, Ansys reports.

Vestas used Ansys SCADE’s Model-Based Software Development Environment to implement wind turbine controllers that met its system design and certification requirements. SCADE supports product-agnostic variant builds with few parameters that can be changed from one turbine to another. 

“SCADE continues to be our go-to for addressing complexities inherent in our wind turbine components,” says Keld Hammerum, senior specialist, functional safety business unit power solutions at Vestas. “Reusing Ansys SCADE application software models within our own simulation framework helps drive more reliable, better simulations that ultimately produce more competitive turbine designs for us.”

“Ansys SCADE helps Vestas to develop the advanced and complex software customers are asking for in a wind turbine design, making it easier to demonstrate compliance with relevant safety standards such as IEC 61508,” says Shane Emswiler, senior vice president of products at Ansys. “Running specialized SCADE models in various simulation environments leads to improved simulation results. We will continue to support Vestas' commitment to developing safe, sustainable energy solutions.”

Sources: Press materials received from the company and additional information gleaned from the company’s website.