Abstract
The scale of a wind turbine is getting larger with the development of wind energy recently. Therefore, the effect of the wind turbine blades deformation on its performances and lifespan has become obvious. In order to solve this research rapidly, a new elastic actuator line model (EALM) is proposed in this study, which is based on turbinesFoam in OpenFOAM (Open Source Field Operation and Manipulation, a free, open source computational fluid dynamics (CFD) software package released by the OpenFOAM Foundation, which was incorporated as a company limited by guarantee in England and Wales). The model combines the actuator line model (ALM) and a beam solver, which is used in the wind turbine blade design. The aeroelastic performances of the NREL (National Renewable Energy Laboratory) 5 MW wind turbine like power, thrust, and blade tip displacement are investigated. These results are compared with some research to prove the new model. Additionally, the influence caused by blade deflections on the aerodynamic performance is discussed. It is demonstrated that the tower shadow effect becomes more obvious and causes the power and thrust to get a bit lower and unsteady. Finally, this variety is analyzed in the wake of upstream wind turbine and it is found that the influence on the performance and wake flow field of downstream wind turbine becomes more serious.
Highlights
With the improvement of wind power technology and the demand of high-power generation, the target of wind turbine design turns to large scale and offshore [1,2,3,4,5,6,7]
A beam solver, which is used in the wind turbine blade design [24], is combined with actuator line model (ALM) to accomplish this task
ALM: Actuator Line Method; CFD: Computational Fluid Dynamics; OpenFOAM: Open Source Field Operation and Manipulation, a free, open source CFD software package released by the OpenFOAM Foundation, which was incorporated as a company limited by guarantee in England and Wales; Star CCM+: Siemens Digital Industries
Summary
With the improvement of wind power technology and the demand of high-power generation, the target of wind turbine design turns to large scale and offshore [1,2,3,4,5,6,7]. Energy Laboratory (NREL) in America defined a 5 MW reference wind turbine for offshore system, in which the rotor diameter is 126 m [8]. Technical University of Denmark described a 10 MW reference wind turbine whose rotor diameter is 178.3 m [9] in 2013. When simulating the aeroelastic performances of a floating offshore wind turbine or a wind farm, there are many challenges to solve. The first one is the Blade Element Momentum (BEM) theory, which combines the blade element theory and momentum theory. It has high efficiency and is widely used in the industrial application, but the information of flow field is not considered. The second one is the Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) method, which calculates the velocity and pressure fields by solving the Navier-Stokes equations
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