Evaluation of different methods for determining the angle of attack on wind turbine blades with CFD results under axial inflow conditions

Journal article (2018)

Authors

H. Rahimi Fraunhofer Institute for Wind Energy Systems (IWES), University of Oldenburg
J.G. Schepers ECN Solar Energy
W. Z. Shen Technical University of Denmark
N. Ramos García Technical University of Denmark
M. S. Schneider Deutsches Zentrum für Luft- und Raumfahrt e.V. (DLR)
D. Micallef University of Malta
Carlos Ferreira Wind Energy - Aerospace Engineering
E. Jost University of Stuttgart
L. Klein University of Stuttgart
I Herraez University of Applied Sciences Emden/Leer
Research Group
Wind Energy (Aerospace Engineering) (TU Delft)
Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) 10 MW wind turbine Angle of Attack (AoA) Axial induction factor Blade element momentum method (BEM) Engineering models
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Published Date

01-09-2018

Language

English

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Faculty

Aerospace Engineering

Department

Flow Physics and Technology

Research Group

Wind Energy

Abstract

This work presents an investigation on different methods for the calculation of the angle of attack and the underlying induced velocity on wind turbine blades using data obtained from three-dimensional Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD). Several methods are examined and their advantages, as well as shortcomings, are presented. The investigations are performed for two 10 MW reference wind turbines under axial inflow conditions, namely the turbines designed in the EU AVATAR and INNWIND.EU projects. The results show that the evaluated methods are in good agreement with each other at the mid-span, though some deviations are observed at the root and tip regions of the blades. This indicates that CFD results can be used for the calibration of induction modeling for Blade Element Momentum (BEM) tools. Moreover, using any of the proposed methods, it is possible to obtain airfoil characteristics for lift and drag coefficients as a function of the angle of attack.