ADES

The Challenge

ADES set out to apply the same concept that has made its industry-leading solar-tracking systems so successful to the wind power market. ADES engineers believed that the company’s autonomous tracking systems might also have applications for wind turbines, controlling the orientation of the turbine blades to catch the wind. To achieve its goals, the company needed to upgrade its development environment from the AutoCAD® and Solid Edge® design tools it had used to an integrated platform that provided both design and simulation capabilities. In order to introduce breakthrough products like the ADES pendular wind turbine efficiently and cost-effectively, ADES needed a system for simulating the complex physics involved in wind turbine design.

The Solution

ADES decided to implement SolidWorks® Premium, SolidWorks Simulation Premium, and SolidWorks Flow Simulation software. The company believed that the integrated design and analysis solution would improve efficiency and accelerate time-to-market. The unique ADES pendular wind turbine employs a downwind construction shape that automatically orients itself toward the wind by means of three passive mechanical systems. Using structural simulation and fluid-flow simulation tools, ADES created a design that compensates, accumulates, and reinstates wind speed variations, preventing them from affecting the evenness of generator rotation and subsequently diminishing structural overload and power peaks caused by wind gusts. By moving to SolidWorks solutions, ADES cut its design cycle by 25 percent, shortened time-to-market by 50 percent, reduced scrap/rework costs by 33 percent, and created a revolutionary wind turbine design. To achieve its goals, the company needed to upgrade its development environment from the AutoCAD® and Solid Edge® design tools it had used to an integrated platform that provided both design and simulation capabilities. In order to introduce breakthrough products like the ADES pendular wind turbine efficiently and cost-effectively, ADES needed a system for simulating the complex physics involved in wind turbine design.