Abstract
This paper opens up a new perspective on the aerodynamic performance of a wind turbine airfoil. More specifically, the paper deals with a steady, incompressible two-phase flow, consisting of air and two different concentrations of sand particles, over an airfoil from the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, NREL S809. The numerical simulations were performed on turbulence models for aerodynamic operations using commercial computational fluid dynamics (CFD) code. The computational results obtained for the aerodynamic performance of an S809 airfoil at various angles of attack operating at Reynolds numbers of Re = 1 × 106 and Re = 2 × 106 in a dry, dusty environment were compared with existing experimental data on air flow over an S809 airfoil from reliable sources. Notably, a structured mesh consisting of 80,000 cells had already been identified as the most appropriate for numerical simulations. Finally, it was concluded that sand concentration significantly affected the aerodynamic performance of the airfoil; there was an increase in the values of the predicted drag coefficients, as well as a decrease in the values of the predicted lift coefficients caused by increasing concentrations of sand particles. The region around the airfoil was studied by using contours of static pressure and discrete phase model (DPM) concentration.
Highlights
In the last few years, renewable sources of energy have been used extensively in many applications, such as power generation
The present study set out to determine the effect of air-sand particle two-phase flow, consisting
The present concentrations study set out toofdetermine the effect of air, air-sand particle two-phase flow, consisting of two different sand particles in the on the aerodynamic performance of an of two different concentrations of sand particles in the air, on the aerodynamic performance of an
Summary
In the last few years, renewable sources of energy have been used extensively in many applications, such as power generation. Renewable sources of energy are significantly superior to fossil energy, due to the fact that they are free and abundant and have a low impact on the environment. Wind energy is becoming more important every year and, wind power generators have attracted a great deal of attention from research teams in pursuing optimal aerodynamic performance. The aerodynamic performance of wind turbine blades can be affected by many conditions, such as sand concentration in dry, dusty environments. Much research has been conducted on the detrimental effects of certain meteorological phenomena, to the authors’ best knowledge, very few publications are available in the literature that discuss the issue of aerodynamic influences due to sand particles in the air. Additional transport equations for the secondary phase are solved using the CFD code and the interaction terms by which the mass, momentum, and energy exchanges between the phases can be handled
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