Turbulent Flow Computations Around Nrel Phase Iv Wind Turbine

Abstract

In this study, turbulent flow simulations were performed around the NREL Phase IV turbine. The objectives are to evaluate the reliability of numerical simulations based on experimental data for numerical validation. The numerical simulations were performed an open-source computational fluid dynamics (CFD) platform code based on the Field Operation and Manipulation C++ class library for continuum mechanics (OpenFOAM). Firstly, a convergence study was carried out for the domain and, later, different levels of refinement were evaluated seeking the smallest possible error considering computational cost. Finally, to validate the results, comparisons were made between the turbine torque obtained in the simulations and the experimental data. Finally, the results show good agreement between simulations and experiments.