Analysis of Unsteady Flows Past Horizontal Axis Wind Turbine Airfoils Based on Harmonic Balance Compressible Navier-Stokes Equations With Low-Speed Preconditioning

Author(s):  
M. Sergio Campobasso ◽  
Mohammad H. Baba-Ahmadi

This paper presents the numerical models underlying the implementation of a novel harmonic balance compressible Navier-Stokes solver with low-speed preconditioning for wind turbine unsteady aerodynamics. The numerical integration of the harmonic balance equations is based on a multigrid iteration, and, for the first time, a numerical instability associated with the use of such an explicit approach in this context is discussed and resolved. The harmonic balance solver with low-speed preconditioning is well suited for the analyses of several unsteady periodic low-speed flows, such as those encountered in horizontal axis wind turbines. The computational performance and the accuracy of the technology being developed are assessed by computing the flow field past two sections of a wind turbine blade in yawed wind with both the time- and frequency-domain solvers. Results highlight that the harmonic balance solver can compute these periodic flows more than 10 times faster than its time-domain counterpart, and with an accuracy comparable to that of the time-domain solver.

2012 ◽  
Vol 134 (6) ◽  
Author(s):  
M. Sergio Campobasso ◽  
Mohammad H. Baba-Ahmadi

This paper presents the numerical models underlying the implementation of a novel harmonic balance compressible Navier-Stokes solver with low-speed preconditioning for wind turbine unsteady aerodynamics. The numerical integration of the harmonic balance equations is based on a multigrid iteration, and, for the first time, a numerical instability associated with the use of such an explicit approach in this context is discussed and resolved. The harmonic balance solver with low-speed preconditioning is well suited for the analyses of several unsteady periodic low-speed flows, such as those encountered in horizontal axis wind turbines. The computational performance and the accuracy of the technology being developed are assessed by computing the flow field past two sections of a wind turbine blade in yawed wind with both the time-and frequency-domain solvers. Results highlight that the harmonic balance solver can compute these periodic flows more than 10 times faster than its time-domain counterpart, and with an accuracy comparable to that of the time-domain solver.


Author(s):  
M. Sergio Campobasso ◽  
Fabio Gigante ◽  
Jernej Drofelnik

Several horizontal axis wind turbine unsteady flows, such as that associated with the yawed wind regime, are predominantly periodic. Harmonic balance Reynolds-averaged Navier-Stokes solvers can be used to accurately analyze such flows substantially faster than what their time-domain counterparts can do. The paper presents the mathematical and numerical features of a new turbulent harmonic balance Navier-Stokes solver using Menter’s shear stress transport model for the turbulence closure. The effectiveness of the developed technology is demonstrated by using two-dimensional harmonic balance flow simulations to determine the periodic aerodynamic loads acting on a blade section of a 164 m-diameter wind turbine rotor in yawed wind. Presented results highlight that the turbulent harmonic balance solver can compute the sectional hysteresis force cycles more than 10 times faster than its time-domain counterpart, and with an accuracy comparable to that of the time-domain solver.


Author(s):  
Adrian Jackson ◽  
M. Sergio Campobasso ◽  
Mohammad H. Baba-Ahmadi

The paper discusses the parallelization of a novel explicit harmonic balance Navier-Stokes solver for wind turbine unsteady aerodynamics. For large three-dimensional problems, the use of a standard MPI parallelization based on the geometric domain decomposition of the physical domain may require an excessive degree of partitioning with respect to that needed when the same aerodynamic analysis is performed with the time-domain solver. This occurrence may penalize the parallel efficiency of the harmonic balance solver due to excessive communication among MPI processes to transfer halo data. In the case of the harmonic balance analysis, the necessity of further grid partitioning may arise because the memory requirement of each block is higher than for the time-domain analysis: it is that of the time-domain analysis multiplied by a variable proportional to the number of complex harmonics used to represent the sought periodic flow field. A hybrid multi-level parallelization paradigm for explicit harmonic balance Navier-Stokes solvers is presented, which makes use of both distributed and shared memory parallelization technologies, and removes the need for further domain decomposition with respect to the case of the time-domain analysis. The discussed parallelization approaches are tested on the multigrid harmonic balance solver being developed by the authors, considering various computational configurations for the CFD analysis of the unsteady flow field past the airfoil of a wind tubine blade in yawed wind.


Author(s):  
M. Sergio Campobasso ◽  
Jernej Drofelnik

A wing that is simultaneously heaving and pitching may extract energy from an oncoming air flow. The relationship between the aerodynamics and the theoretical performance of this device is here investigated by means of time-dependent laminar flow simulations performed with a research compressible Navier-Stokes solver. The presented analyses confirm the findings of other studies that the efficiency of the power extraction of this device can reach 34%, due to the favourable effects of a strong dynamic stall. In view of aeroacoustic applications, the developed flow solver uses the compressible Navier-Stokes equations with carefully optimized low-speed preconditioning. To demonstrate the modeling capabilities and the high computational performance of this approach, the unsteady aerodynamics of the energy-extracting device is simulated by using a computationally challenging freestream Mach number of 0.001. A fundamental element of novelty of this study is a thorough assessment of the proposed approach partly based on the challenging and realistic problem associated with the oscillating wing device.


2012 ◽  
Vol 622-623 ◽  
pp. 1084-1088
Author(s):  
Jafar Bazrafshan ◽  
Payam Sabaeifard ◽  
Farid Khalafi ◽  
Majid Jamil

Integrating wind turbines in urban areas especially over buildings is a new way of producing electricity which is supported in recent years. Wind turbines sited well above the roof of buildings operate in skewed flow. In this paper, to examine variations in efficiency of wind turbines in this condition, two models of H-Rotor and horizontal axis wind turbine analyzed based on axial momentum theory through computer simulations. Simulations conducted through CFD method and k-ε turbulence model was utilized to analyze flow fluctuations in Navier-Stokes equations. Models show that, for an H-Rotor, the optimal power output in tilted flow can be up to two times the power output of horizontal axis wind turbine (HAWT).


Energies ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 12 (16) ◽  
pp. 3124 ◽  
Author(s):  
Xiaodong Wang ◽  
Zhaoliang Ye ◽  
Shun Kang ◽  
Hui Hu

Wind turbines inevitably experience yawed flows, resulting in fluctuations of the angle of attack (AOA) of airfoils, which can considerably impact the aerodynamic characteristics of the turbine blades. In this paper, a horizontal-axis wind turbine (HAWT) was modeled using a structured grid with multiple blocks. Then, the aerodynamic characteristics of the wind turbine were investigated under static and dynamic yawed conditions using the Unsteady Reynolds Averaged Navier-Stokes (URANS) method. In addition, start-stop yawing rotations at two different velocities were studied. The results suggest that AOA fluctuation under yawing conditions is caused by two separate effects: blade advancing & retreating and upwind & downwind yawing. At a positive yaw angle, the blade advancing & retreating effect causes a maximum AOA at an azimuth angle of 0°. Moreover, the effect is more dominant in inboard airfoils compared to outboard airfoils. The upwind & downwind yawing effect occurs when the wind turbine experiences dynamic yawing motion. The effect increases the AOA when the blade is yawing upwind and vice versa. The phenomena become more dominant with the increase of yawing rate. The torque of the blade in the forward yawing condition is much higher than in backward yawing, owing to the reversal of the yaw velocity.


2016 ◽  
Vol 78 (8-4) ◽  
Author(s):  
Muhammad Hafidz Ariffudin ◽  
Fazila Mohd Zawawi ◽  
Haslinda Mohamed Kamar ◽  
Nazri Kamsah

There has been an increasing demand for renewable energy in order to create a sustainable society as the non-renewable energies such as fossil fuel resources are limited. Modern wind turbines claim that they have a high efficiency in term of wind energy extraction. However, there are still having losses due to tip vortex causing to a reduction in performance.  Motivated by this reason, this research aims at exploring the possibility to increase the performance of low speed small-scaled horizontal axis wind turbine with various tip devices using Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD). Four wind turbine blades with different tip devices which consist of sword tip, swept tip, upwind winglet and downwind winglet are compared with wind turbine blade without tip device in term of CP. The application of tip device can significantly reduce induced tip vortex and improve wind turbine performance. For TSR below than 4, adding a sword tip increases CP about 7.3%, swept tip increases CP about 9.1%, upwind winglet increases CP about 1.8% and downwind winglet increases CP about 3.2%. It is observed that the best tip device for low wind speed application is swept tip as it give the highest performance increment compared to without tip device.


1995 ◽  
Vol 117 (4) ◽  
pp. 311-317 ◽  
Author(s):  
P. So̸rensen ◽  
G. C. Larsen ◽  
C. J. Christensen

The present paper describes a frequency domain model of the structure of an operating horizontal axis wind turbine with three or more blades. The frequency domain model is implemented along with an analogous time domain model in a PC code. This PC code is used to verify the frequency domain model comparing loads on the structure calculated with the frequency domain model both to loads calculated with the time domain model and to measured loads.


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