Wind tunnel study: is turbulent intensity a good candidate to help in bypassing low Reynolds number effects on 2d blade sections?

Abstract

Wind turbines operate in the turbulent atmospheric boundary layer and can be additionally exposed to the wakes of upstream wind turbines. Hence the inflow encountered by wind turbine rotor blades is turbulent. One way to gain more knowledge on the impact of the turbulence on the airfoil aerodynamics is by studying a 2d airfoil section of a real wind turbine blade against inflows of various turbulence intensities and Reynolds numbers. Therefore, for the purpose of this paper, experiments were performed and aerodynamic coefficients were calculated for chord based Reynolds numbers between 1.3 × 105 and 3 × 105 and angles of attack between -10° and 24° for inflows of three different averaged turbulence intensities, 0.3%, 3% and 5.5%. Results were compared with the already available result of measurements done at a higher chord based Reynolds number of 4.7×106 for the same airfoil type. The results show that, for a given Reynolds number, an increase in turbulence intensity suppresses the flow separation. It was also found that an increase in the turbulence intensity of the inflow does reduce the dependence of aerodynamic coefficients on the Reynolds number. The Comparison between experimental results for lower chord-based Reynolds numbers and high chord-based Reynolds numbers shows differences which implies that an increase of the turbulence intensity is not enough to bypass the low Reynolds number effect completely.