Numerical simulation of turbulent natural convection heat transfer in an MW-class offshore wind turbine nacelle based on a multi-feature acquisition meshing technique

Abstract

In order to improve the computational accuracy of numerical simulations of complex thermal environments in MW-class offshore wind turbine nacelles, this paper improves the numerical simulation method for 10 MW offshore wind turbine nacelles. Firstly, the model of the wind turbine generator system (WTGS) inside the nacelle is designed and the model is simplified. Secondly, a multi-featured acquisition meshing is performed for the turbulent thermal behavior in the nacelle, using a combination of mesh geometry parameters, mesh accuracy parameters, mesh irrelevance parameters and detection verification parameters to construct a structural mesh topology. The modified SST k-ω turbulence model is used to solve the momentum and energy equations of the nacelle model. The complex physical phenomena of air recirculation, boundary layer separation and thermal stratification in the nacelle are verified based on the calculated results and compared with the experimental data, which are in good agreement with the experimental results. This paper has certain application value and guidance significance in the field of engineering such as the design of offshore wind turbine nacelle structure and cooling system design.