The course objective is to gain an understanding of wind turbine design and operation. Specifically, students will study the basic theories and models used in a full commercial aeroelastic code for wind turbine load estimation. This will involve examining the coupling between unsteady rotor aerodynamics and dynamic structural models, and implementing and simulating the wind turbine controller. En studerende, der fuldt ud har opfyldt kursets mål, vil kunne:

• Run, alter and describe an unsteady Blade Element Momentum method to model the aerodynamic forces on a rotor
• Describe and implement a dynamic wake/inflow model in the unsteady aerodynamic model
• Describe and implement unsteady 2-D aerodynamics in the unsteady aerodynamic model
• Describe and derive how the atmospheric turbulent inflow excites the rotor structure and leads to the turbine load
• Couple the unsteady aerodynamic model with a simple structural model
• Explain the operational regions of wind turbines and the control objective of each region
• Analyse and implement a basic wind turbine controller
• Simulate and describe the static and dynamic response and loads on a turbine
• Describe the stability analysis of a wind turbine and discuss its issues
• Use AI based tools to support the understanding and communication of aerodynamic, aeroelastic and control concepts, and critically evaluate the correctness of AI generated explanations.

In this course you will run, alter and describe simple aeroelastic models of a wind turbine in a numerical framework (Python) to couple a structural model with an unsteady aerodynamic rotor model. You will also play with and operate a basic controller and simulate the response of a wind turbine.

The final grade is based on four assignments about the course content and a video presentation on a related topic. Students will use AI based tools to support their learning, preparation of the assignments and presentation, and are expected to critically evaluate the correctness of AI generated explanations. 28. april, 2026