QBlade

QBlade

Wind Turbine Design and Simulation

QBlade is an Open Source Software developed by the

Hermann Föttinger Institute of TU Berlin

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About

QBlade is an open source wind turbine calculation software, distributed under the GPL.

The integration of the XFOIL/XFLR5 functionality allows the user to rapidly design custom airfoils and compute their performance polars and directly integrate them into a wind turbine rotor design and simulation.

The software is especially adequate for teaching, as it provides a ’hands on’ design and simulation capabilities for HAWT and VAWT rotor design and shows all the fundamental relationships of design concepts and turbine performance in an easy and intuitive way.

QBlade also includes extensive post processing functionality for the rotor and turbine simulations and gives deep insight into all relevant blade and rotor variables. In addition to that, the resulting software is a very flexible and user-friendly platform for wind turbine blade design.
Basic Functionality
Extrapolation of XFOIL generated or imported polar data to 360° AoA

Blade design and optimization, including 3D visualization, using XFOIL generated or imported profiles

Turbine definition (rotor blade, turbine control, generator type, losses...)

Computation of rotor performance over lambda (tip speed ratio) range

Turbulent inflow field generator according to the model of Veers.
Computation of rotor performance over lambda (tip speed ratio) range

Computation of turbine performance over wind speed range

Annual yield computation based on custom Weibull distribution>

Manual selection of BEM (Blade Element Momentum) and DMS (Double Multiple Streamtube) correction algorithms

Multi parameter rotor simulations.
Data browsing and visualization as post processing

Export functionality for all created simulation data

Blade geometry export functionality

Storing of projects, rotors, turbines and simulations in a runtime database

Integration of the aeroelastic code AeroDyn/FAST of the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL)
Learn About Our History
Development History

- QBlade's development started a small part of the PhD work of G. Pechlivanoglou at the Hermann Föttinger Institute of TU Berlin.

- The initial development was done by D. Marten who implemented all the standard airfoil and blade design and simulation routines based on the XFLR5 project.

- G. Weinzierl, undergraduate student at the time initiated the development of an integrated turbulent wind field generator

- J. Wendler under the supervision of D. Marten developed the VAWT module and the Viterna 360° extrapolation module.

- M. Lennie performed the development of a structural Euler-Bernoulli beam module (QFEM).

- N. Moesus further developed and integrated the code of G. Weinzierl and M. Lennie in the QBlade code. Furthermore he initiated the integration of a fully developed (GUI) for the aeroelastic code FAST or NREM/NWTC inside QBlade.

- QBlade programming is currently handled by J.Wendler, N. Moesus and D. Marten and the latest version (v0.8) of the software was released in May 2014.

D. Marten is the person mainly responsible for the development and supervision of future versions while G. Pechlivanoglou, G. Weinzierl, N. Moesus and J. Wendler also remain very active in the project
Download QBlade

The software still has beta status, please report bugs to bugs@q-blade.org!!!
New version v0.8 for windows & linux availiable!!

Download Software

QBlade_win_v0.8.zip

The Qt libraries need to be installed in order to run the Linux version. If, for any reason, QBlade is not running properly under Linux, the Windows version can be emulated with WINE

Download Guidelines

GUIDELINES v0.6

The Guidelines give a short overview on how to use QBlade

And a short manual of the latest v0.8 version

Download the GPL license

GPL License

One important point about the GPL is that this program is distributed without any warranty. Whether the warranty of merchantability, nor the warranty of fitness for a particular purpose. The resulting software is not intended as a professional product and does not offer any guarantee of robustness or accuracy. It is distributed as a personal use application only.
QBlade Screenshots
Links
PhD, MSc and BSc Thesis Publications

- Doctoral Thesis of Dr.-Ing. G. Pechlivanoglou (Initiation of QBlade project)
- Diploma Thesis of Dipl.-Ing. D. Marten (Development of all the main features)
- Diploma Thesis of Dipl.-Ing. J. Wendler (VAWT and Viternal Extrapolation Module)
- MSc Thesis of MSc M. Lennie (Introduction of structural QFEM module)

Scientific & Technical Papers
- QBLADE: AN OPEN SOURCE TOOL FOR DESIGN AND SIMULATION OF
  HORIZONTAL AND VERTICAL AXIS WIND TURBINES
Relevant Links
- in SOURCEFORGE
- HFI TU BERLIN
- QBlade in
- The 1st Project fork of QBlade -->
Get in Touch!

We would be happy to answer questions, receive bug reports and give advise.

If you would like to report a bug please use the Bug Report Form or write an e-mail at: bugs@q-blade.org

If you have questions about the use of the software please read through the GUIDELINES and check our Blog.

If you cannot find the anwer to your question please use the CONTACT Form or write us at info@q-blade.org

Most of all we would be glad to receive contributions from students and researchers who would like to be a part of the QBlade Team!!

Postal Address

QBlade Team

HFI TU Berlin
Müller-Breslau-Straße 8
D-10623 Berlin

Germany

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