OpenFAST — The Complete Guide: Free Aeroelastic Simulation of Wind Turbines
OpenFAST is an open-source tool from the US National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) for time-domain simulation of a complete wind turbine. It couples blade aerodynamics, structural dynamics of blades and tower, the control system and, for offshore machines, waves, substructures and moorings. It is the reference tool for load calculations in wind energy research.
OpenFAST
National Renewable Energy Laboratory
Aeroelastic simulation of wind turbines, from NREL.
Get it from the vendorWhat you get
- AeroDyn — aerodynamics by BEM or a vortex wake method.
- ElastoDyn and BeamDyn — flexibility of blades, tower and drivetrain.
- ServoDyn — controller interface: blade pitch, generator torque and shutdowns.
- HydroDyn, SubDyn and MoorDyn — wave loads, support structures and moorings for floating turbines.
- TurbSim — generating turbulent wind fields as input.
How to use it
OpenFAST works with text input files for each module, with no graphical interface. Start from NREL’s public reference turbine models and change them step by step. Results are time series of loads and displacements, which you process in Python for fatigue and extreme-load calculations.
Related tools
For an environment with a graphical interface for blade design and simulation — QBlade. To analyse the blade airfoils — XFOIL. To estimate a project’s energy yield and costs — SAM.
QBlade Community Edition
QBlade (originally TU Berlin, Hermann-Föttinger-Institut)
Aero-servo-hydro-elastic wind turbine simulation. The Community Edition is free for non-commercial use only.
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XFOIL
MIT — Mark Drela
Airfoil analysis and design at low Reynolds numbers — the classic reference in the field.
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SAM — System Advisor Model
NREL
Technical and financial modelling of renewable energy systems — annual yield and payback.
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Python
Python Software Foundation
The language behind most modern engineering computation, and its full ecosystem.
Get it from the vendorThe bottom line
OpenFAST is the open standard for wind turbine simulation — completely free, including for commercial work, for anyone willing to work with input files.