Page 16 - Fluid Power Engineering

xiv Preface

wind energy engineering. Finally, another intended audience is com-
prised of business people and project managers who work in the wind
energy industry.
Engineers will find sufficient detail about each of the topics. I have
kept the math to a level that would be comfortable for a practicing
engineer. In areas that require sophisticated math, I have attempted
to provide insights into the relationships.
As with any endeavor, I had to make decisions about what to
include in the book and what to leave out. I chose to leave out of
the book discussions and debates about climate change and energy
policy. Although these are critical to understanding the big picture,
I am not particularly qualified to write about these issues. Wherever
appropriate, I have briefly discussed these two topics. This book is not
an engineering design manual for turbines. The exposition on turbines
is limited to describing the major components and their functions; it
does not cover the complexity of computing forces and displacements
nor design and engineering of the components.
The book starts with a brief description of the wind energy busi-
ness with an emphasis on the explosive growth witnessed by the wind
energy industry. Although such an explosive growth rate is difficult
to sustain for long periods, I believe that the wind industry will ex-
perience sustained 15 to 20% growth over the next decade. On the
basis of this conservative estimate, there will be a healthy demand for
engineers, technicians, scientists, project managers, and financiers for
years to come.
The second chapter of the book introduces readers to the concepts
of energy and power, what kind and how much energy is contained
in wind, and how much of it can be captured by a wind turbine.
The third chapter describes properties of wind from a meteorolog-
ical perspective. It starts with a description of how wind is generated.
Next, the statistical nature of wind speed is described, followed by the
impact of height on wind speed. The chapter then concludes with de-
pendence of wind energy on air density and dependence of air density
on temperature, pressure, and humidity.
The fourth chapter describes the mechanics of how wind energy is
converted into mechanical energy using aerodynamics of blades. This
is important in order to understand the functioning of a wind turbine.
The fifth chapter presents a more detailed exposition on the aerody-
namics of blades and how power performance curves of turbines are
created.
The sixth chapter switches from the science of energy and airflow
to the science of measurement. Measurement of wind speed is a crucial
step in a wind project because all utility scale projects require it, and