Aerodynamic Analysis of a Wind Turbine With Elevated Inflow Turbulence and Wake Using Harmonic Method

Abstract

This paper presents aerodynamic simulation and analysis of a horizontal axis wind turbine using Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) method. The MEXICO (Model Rotor Experiments In Controlled Conditions) Experiment wind turbine is selected for simulation as the experimental data are available and can be used for validation of the CFD model used. CFD method has been used by a number of studies to predict aerodynamic behaviour of wind turbines. However, the majority of studies consider a steady wind flow at the inlet. Sometimes this is not the case when the wind flow is not steady or there are other wind turbines nearby. In this paper, the steady simulations are first conducted using different turbulence models without considering inflow wake at the inlet. Afterwards, a harmonic wake is generated at the inlet and unsteady CFD simulation is performed. Unsteady CFD simulation usually requires long runtime and therefore harmonic (frequency domain) method, which is an efficient computational method to study unsteady periodic flow at a computational cost in the order of steady-state solutions, is used for unsteady computation in this study. This paper first discusses the pressure coefficient distributions with and without harmonic wake at the inlet and compares them against the experiment. Afterwards the detailed analysis of flow around the blade subject to the unsteady harmonic wake is conducted in the meridional view and the blade-to-blade view. Next, the effect of pressure distribution on the blade structure is briefly discussed. Finally this paper concludes based on the results from the aerodynamic analysis as well as the analysis of the effect of aerodynamic loads on the blade structure.

Aeromechanical Analysis of a Complete Wind Turbine Using Nonlinear Frequency Domain Solution Method

“…Numerical simulations have also been carried out for this wind turbine [33][34][35][36][37]. The selected parameters of this wind turbine which are used in the present simulations are listed in Table 1, and further details can be found in the authors' previous papers [27][28]. The modal coupling FSI method, as described in the methodology section, is used to conduct the aeromechanical analysis.…”

“…Despite the fact that the Experiments In Controlled Conditions) Experiment wind turbine, is selected for this study. This paper can be considered as a continuation of the authors' previous studies [27][28] in which the aerodynamic and aeromechanical simulations of wind turbine rotors are presented using a frequency domain method.…”

Aeromechanical Analysis of a Complete Wind Turbine Using Nonlinear Frequency Domain Solution Method

“…previous papers [27][28]. The modal coupling FSI method, as described in the methodology section, is used to conduct the aeromechanical analysis.…”

“…A test case wind turbine, the MEXICO (Model Rotor Experiments In Controlled Conditions) Experiment wind turbine, is selected for this study. This paper can be considered as a continuation of the authors' previous studies [27][28] in which the aerodynamic and aeromechanical simulations of wind turbine rotors are presented using a frequency domain method.…”

Numerical Investigation of the Effect of Flutter Instability of the Blade on the Unsteady Flow in a Modern Low-Pressure Turbine

“…It is shown that a fully coupled multi-row analysis should yield more accurate flutter predictions than the simplified isolated blade row case [17]. Shine et al [18][19] also applied the non-linear harmonic method to the aerodynamic and aeromechanical analysis of wind turbine rotors.…”