Flow around a Wind Turbine Blade at Reynolds Number 1 Million

Principal Investigators:
Prof. Dr. habil. Michael Breuer
Project Manager:
Prof. Dr. habil. Michael Breuer
HPC Platform used:
NHR@FAU: Fritz
Project ID:
ealy-access-cpu-hus1
Date published:
Researchers:
Prof. Dr. Alois Peter Schaffarczyk, M.Sc. Brandon Arthur Lobo
Introduction:
The cost of energy produced by wind turbines has been undergoing a steady reduction. Wind energy supplied 15% of the electricity demand of the European Union in 2019. Since rotor blades are the determining component for both performance and loads, they are the objective of further optimizations. To obtain high efficiencies, an increased use of special aerodynamic profiles is observed possessing large areas of low-resistance, which means laminar flow is maintained. In order to design such profiles, it is necessary to include the laminar-turbulent transition in CFD simulations of wind turbine blades. Thus, the objective of the project is to carry out high-fidelity numerical simulations of the flow around a wind turbine blade at a realistic Reynolds number to get a deeper insight into this phenomenon and especially the transition process under different levels of the turbulence intensities of the approaching flow.
Institute / Institutes:
Professur für Strömungsmechanik (PfS), Institut für Mechanik
Affiliation:
Helmut-Schmidt-Universität Hamburg
Image:
Flow around a wind turbine blade at Re = 106 and an angle of attack of 4° without inflow turbulence: (a) Instantaneous streamwise velocity and (b) time-averaged Reynolds shear stress.