Aerodynamic shape optimization of wind turbine rotor blades considering aeroelastic deformation effect

Abstract

An aerodynamic shape optimization framework of two modules is developed for improving the aerodynamic performance of wind turbine rotor blades. The first module conducts CFD-based aeroelastic analysis for the complete blade configuration to evaluate the turbine performance and to extract the sectional flow conditions at selected blade sections. The second module performs 2-D shape optimization of blade sections to maximize the lift-to-drag ratio under given sectional flow conditions. When the optimization is completed for all selected blade sections, the performance and sectional flow characteristics of the new blade reconfigured from the optimized sections are evaluated again by the CFD-based aeroelastic analysis. The above procedure is repeated until the solution converges satisfactorily. Applications were made for the NREL phase VI and the NREL 5MW reference wind turbines. The results showed that the optimization framework can be effectively utilized in enhancing the aerodynamic performance of wind turbine blades.