The Effect of Blade Coning on the Flow Field of Wind Turbines under Yaw Conditions

Abstract

Most wind turbines operate under yaw conditions, which can reduce the output power of wind turbines. In order to improve the power of wind turbines under yaw conditions, this paper adopts a method of blade taper to study its impact on the wind turbine flow field. A 2000W wind turbine is chosen as the research object and SOILDWORKS software is employed to establish a model of blade taper. Three cone angles of 4 °, 8 °, and 12 ° were used, and numerical simulations were conducted using STARCCM+. It is found that under 30 ° yaw conditions, the blade with a cone angle of 12 ° had the highest output power, followed by 8 ° and 4 °. Compared to 4 °, the output power of 12 ° and 8 ° increased by 2.32% and 5.99%, respectively. At the same time, appropriately increasing the blade cone angle can also reduce the dissipation of tip vortices and center vortices in the flow field. By analyzing the limit streamline diagram, it can be concluded that the vorticity at an 8 ° cone angle is less than the other two cone angles under 30 ° operating conditions. Therefore, in this simulation, the comprehensive performance of the 8 ° cone angle is better, which not only improves the output power under 30 ° yaw, but also makes the operation of the wind turbine more stable.