Aerodynamic modeling of wind turbine loads exposed to turbulent inflow and validation with experimental data. (15th May 2021)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Bangga, Galih; Lutz, Thorsten
• Is Part Of: Energy. Volume 223(2021)
• Publication Date: 2021-05-15
• Subjects: Aerodynamics -- BEM -- CFD -- Loads -- Momentum -- Turbulence; Power resources -- Periodicals; Power (Mechanics) -- Periodicals; Energy consumption -- Periodicals; 333.7905
• DOI: 10.1016/j.energy.2021.120076
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0360-5442

Abstract

Abstract: The present paper is intended to assess the ability of the state-of-the-art computational fluid dynamics (CFD) and blade element momentum (BEM) approaches for accurate load predictions on a 2.3 MW wind turbine rotor. Three different cases are considered, a steady uniform inflow condition, a turbulent uniform inflow condition and a turbulent inflow case in combination with shear and yaw. The CFD computations employ a delayed-detached eddy simulation (DDES) approach in combination with a high order (5th) WENO method for flux discretization. The BEM calculations apply several correction factors including recently developed dynamic stall and yaw models. Furthermore, a well established procedure at IAG to set-up BEM calculations consistent to CFD will be presented and verified. The results are compared with the field experimental data of the turbine for these three different flow conditions. The studies show that both CFD and BEM results are in a very good agreement with the experimental data not only on the mean load levels but also with regards to the load fluctuations. The differences between BEM, CFD and experimental data for most radial stations are less than 10%. Highlights: A dedicated procedure for consistent BEM-CFD simulations is presented. A new yaw model formulation for BEM is presented. Advanced numerical techniques are used to simulate wind turbine loads. The studies consider uniform, sheared and yawed flow conditions. CFD and BEM are in a very good agreement with measurement data.