Numerical simulation and analysis of the effect of rain and surface property on wind-turbine airfoil performance

Cohan, Aiden; Arastoopour, Hamid

doi:10.1016/j.ijmultiphaseflow.2016.01.006

Cited by 38 publications

(35 citation statements)

References 14 publications

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“…To develop a comprehensive model to simulate the motion of rain droplets before they enter the water layer, the formation of the water layer from rain droplets on the wind turbine airfoils, and flow of the air and water layer on the surface of the turbine airfoils, two multiphase models (Lagrangian DPM and the Eulerian VOF model) were used (Cai et al and Cohan and Arastoopour). In the Lagrangian DPM model, the fluid phase is treated as a continuum, while the dispersed phase is solved by tracking the rain droplets through the calculated flow field.…”

Section: Numerical Modelingmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The coupling between DPM and VOF models was done by adding mass and drag exerted by the rain droplets to the water layer on the surface of the turbine blades. In this study, instead of assuming that all the droplet momentum is transferred to the water layer without any dissipation (Cohan and Arastoopour), we assumed that the drag force exerted by the droplets on the water layer is the responsible mechanism for momentum transfer from the droplet to the water layer and consequently should be included in the momentum source term expression

F_{i} = \frac{1}{2} ρ β {({u'}_{P i} - u_{normalc normale normall normall, i})}^{2}

…”

Section: Coupling Of Dpm and Vof Modelsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…We also included the effects of surface tension between phases in the VOF model. The surface tension model used in this research is the continuum surface force (CSF) model proposed by Brackbill et al In our model, the addition of surface tension to the VOF calculation results in additional tangential stresses implemented as the source term in the VOF momentum equation (for more details, see Cohan and Arastoopour).…”

Section: Coupling Of Dpm and Vof Modelsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…They included in their model a continuous addition of rain droplet mass on the water layer on the surface of their 2D airfoil by coupling the Lagrangian discrete phase model (DPM) for rain droplets with a Eulerian volume of fluid (VOF) model for the water layer flow on the surface of an airfoil. Recently, Cohan and Arastoopour further improved the Cai et al model by adding the surface tension and the rain droplet total momentum in addition to droplet mass to simulate the effect of lift and drag forces exerted on an airfoil due to rain.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In this work, we further improved the Cohan and Arastoopour coupled Lagrangian DPM and the Eulerian VOF model by including droplet drag exerted in the direction parallel to the surface of the airfoil instead of total momentum and applied our modified multiphase flow model to a HAWT airfoil operating in a rainy environment. We first applied our 2D model to the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) S809 airfoil used in the blade profile of a HAWT to obtain a fundamental understanding of the effect of rain on the airfoil and verification of our assumption for the simulation of the three‐dimensional horizontal (3D) wind turbine.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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CFD simulation of the effect of rain on the performance of horizontal wind turbines

Arastoopour

Cohan

2017

AIChE Journal

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Wind turbine power output is influenced by environmental conditions, including rain. Therefore, a better understanding of the effect of rain on the performance of wind turbines is necessary. Our coupled Lagrangian-Eulerian multiphase computational fluid dynamics model was modified to more accurately simulate the momentum transfer during water film formation on the airfoils of a horizontal-axis turbine and the performance loss caused by the rainwater film on the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) turbine performance. To obtain three-dimensional numerical simulation of the wind turbine in manageable computational time, simplifying assumptions were made and the validity of these assumptions was verified by simulating the flow over the S809 airfoil of the NREL turbine. In a dry environment, simulation of turbine power output agreed well with NREL experimental data. Our multiphase model showed that the rain film accumulation and flow on the surface of the turbine airfoil reduces the power output of the turbine. Figure 7. Time-averaged lift and drag coefficients for two rainfall rates of 40 and 400 mm/h at 08 to 208 angles of attack.

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Section: Numerical Modelingmentioning

confidence: 99%