Wind turbine airfoil design using response surface method

Abstract

This paper describes the design of a wind turbine airfoil under various operating conditions through the use of a suitable combination of flow analysis and optimization techniques. The proposed method includes a parametric study on the influence of design variables and different design conditions on airfoil performance. The incompressible Navier-Stokes equations and the k-ɛ turbulence model are used to compute the aerodynamic coefficients of an airfoil. The response surface method (RSM) is applied to obtain the optimum solution of the defined objective function and the penalty term of the constraint. The influence of the design variables (change in airfoil geometry) on airfoil performance as well as the accuracy of the RSM is examined from the statistical viewpoint. Various airfoil shapes with good aerodynamic performance are obtained according to various operating conditions (change in angle of attack), objective functions (minimum of drag coefficient or maximum of lift-to-drag ratio), and constraints (the lift coefficient of a designed airfoil is higher than that of a base airfoil at a certain angle of attack).