Vortex Generators for Flow Separation Control: Wind Turbine Applications

Vortex generators have become a ubiquitous sight on the modern wind turbine blade. These small, passive devices can increase the energy extraction potential of a rotor, but their subtle footprint disguises the technical difficulties associated with designing and integrating them onto wind turbine blades. The complexity of rotor inflow and the...

An integral boundary layer engineering model for vortex generators implemented in XFOIL

To assess and optimize vortex generators (VGs) for flow separation control, the effect of these devices should be modelled in a cost and time efficient way. Therefore, it is of interest to extend integral boundary layer models to analyse the effect of VGs on airfoil performance. In this work, the turbulent boundary layer formulation is...

Integral boundary layer analysis of vortex generator induced flow on a flat plate

Vortex Generators (VGs) are flow control devices commonly applied in wind turbine blades, among other applications. A significant advance in the design of wind turbine blades would be the integration of vortex generators in the aerofoil optimisation process. Currently, aerofoil optimisation relies on either computational fluid dynamics or...

An integral boundary layer method for modelling the effects of vortex generators

In this work, the measured modulated integral boundary layer (IBL) characteristics of low-profile vortex generators (VGs) are used to validate new developments in a viscousinviscid interaction code which is modified to incorporate the effect of the passive mixing devices. The motivations are laid out and sample validation data is presented...

The Modeling of Laminar-to-turbulent Transition for Unsteady Integral Boundary Layer Equations with High-order Discontinuous Galerkin Method

This project focuses on extending the existing model for two-dimensional laminar boundary layers to turbulent boundary layers and more importantly to include the modeling of transition to turbulence in unsteady boundary layers. The existing models are extended and a new transition model for unsteady boundary layers is developed. Successful...

Path-consistent schemes for interacting boundary layers: A discontinuous Galerkin approach

This study is aimed at modelling of the unsteady interacting boundary layer around wind turbine rotor blades. It is shown that nonconservative mechanisms are present in this system, affecting the definition and approximation of solutions to the problem. The objective is to overcome the inconsistency of classical (dissipative) schemes, and find a...

Solving the integral boundary layer equations with a discontinuous Galerkin method

In this study the two-dimensional, unsteady integral boundary layer equations are solved numerically together with a closure set for laminar and turbulent flows. A high-order discontinuous Galerkin method is used for the spatial discretization and a multi-stage Runge-Kutta scheme is employed for the time integration. Numerical results show good...