Inverse design of a cyclorotor using Bayesian inference and CFD simulations

Within the context of the new wave of eVTOL aircraft development, Cyclotech GmbH has been working on the development of cyclorotors, a type of propeller consisting of rotating blades along a common longitudinal axis, where the pitch angle of the blades is actively controlled through what is known as a pitch curve. This thesis proposes a...

A Numerical Study on Compressible Flows over Thick Airfoils for Tilted Wind Turbines

While the assumption of incompressible flow has been the prevailing standard for numerical simulations of wind turbine aerodynamics, the limit of this assumption is approached as the industry progresses towards increasingly higher operational tip speeds. This thesis explores the implications of compressibility and transonic flow phenomena,...

The Impact of Wind Shear and Turbulence on the Loads and Performance of Wind Turbines

Operating in real-world conditions, modern large capacity wind turbines often experience off-design situations, enduring dynamic loads characterized by complex unsteady aerodynamics. Key among the challenges in predicting these dynamic loads is understanding the effects of wind shear and turbulence, both individually and in their complex...

Aerodynamics of Airfoils with Leading Edge Roughness

Leading edge roughness is an important challenge for the wind energy industry as blades are permanently exposed to the damaging impacts of the environment. The contamination due to impact of insects, ice accretion and dust; as well as the erosion of the blade due to rain, debris and abrasive airborne particles increase roughness upon the surface...

Semi-infinite laguerre functions for wind turbine wake modeling

With an increased demand for renewable energy wind farms, their efficiency receives growing attention from both the industry and academics. Mitigating wake interaction effects in wind farms is one of the ways wind farms could increase their efficiency. Control techniques to increase wake reenergizing are currently under development, however, are...

CFD Simulation of a Floating Wind Turbine with OpenFOAM: an FSI approach based on the actuator line and relaxation zone methods

Floating offshore wind turbines (FOWTs) have the potential to harness wind resources in deepwater, which is so far prohibitive for conventional approaches. This, however, comes at a cost: the platform’s extra degrees of freedom (DoFs) introduce complex aerodynamic and hydrodynamic behaviours. Therefore, FOWTs must be accurately modeled to reduce...

Vertical Axis Wind Turbine Optimization for Ship Propulsion: using a free wake vortex model

The global emission of harmful greenhouse gasses has to be reduced. Commercial shipping contributes to these emissions by using fossil fuel as the only energy source to provide propulsion and power auxiliary systems. In order to reduce fuel consumption, much research is focused on increasing the efficiency of the propulsion system and reducing...

Double actuator cylinder (AC) model of a tandem vertical axis wind turbine (VAWT) counter-rotating rotor concept operating in different wind conditions

The aim of this thesis is to evaluate the influence between the two counter-rotating VAWT rotors with the Double Actuator Cylinder (DAC) model which will be validated against the panel code. The DAC model is developed from the original Actuator Cylinder (AC) model which includes the Modified-Linear (Mod-Lin) correction. The original AC model for...