Vortex Shedding Lock-In due to Stream-Wise Oscillation of a 2-D Wind Turbine Blade Section at High Angles of Attack

Abstract

The unsteady, incompressible flow around a translating two-dimensional wind turbine blade section (NREL S809) in the stream-wise direction has been simulated using unsteady RANS with the transition SST turbulence model. The Reynolds number is Re = 106 referred to a chord length of 1 m. A prescribed sinusoidal stream-wise motion has been applied at a fixed amplitude of 0.25 m for a range of high angles of attack [30° < α < 150°]. At these incidences, the airfoil will behave more like a bluff body and may experience periodic vortex shedding. It is well known that oscillations can lead to a synchronization (lock-in) of the vortex shedding frequency, fv, with the body’s motion frequency, fs, in bluff body flows. In order to investigate the susceptibility of the wind turbine blade section to lock-in, a parametric study has been conducted varying the frequency ratio r, (r = fs/fv0), in a range around r = 1 and r = 0.5. The lock-in region boundaries have been proposed and an analysis of the effect of the oscillation amplitude has been conducted. The synchronization map obtained suggests that, for the vibration amplitude considered, the risk of vortex-induced vibration is more significant in the regions of α = 35° and α = 145°. Furthermore, it has been found that for some stream-wise amplitudes, increasing the oscillation amplitude, lock-in appears to be unexpectedly suppressed in the vicinity of r = 1.