Analysis of Wind Turbine Blade Using 3D CFD and its Comparison

MAURO GRIONI; LEANDRO MIGUEL ORSI

Florianopolis

Conferencia; ANSYS South American Conference & ESSS Users Meeting; 2009

Engineering Simulation and Scientific Software

In the design of modern wind turbine, the development of more efficient blades is necessary to reach high aerodynamic performances and further reduce generation costs. For this purpose, CFD is an important tool to predict the dynamic and behavior of the fluid, as well as, to understand the complex flow physics around the rotating wind turbine blades. The objective of this work is to obtain a steady state solution. This goal is achieved by using a static and rotating domain. The mesh?s technique used is the multizone. This technique allows working with both structured and non-structured meshes. Near the blade the structured mesh is better to define the boundary layer and far from the blade the non-structured is preferred. In this study, a wind turbine blade of 38.9 m of span is simulated under operation state. Commercial CFD solver ANSYS CFX is used to determine the complex flow dynamics analysed around the blade. The SST model is use to model the boundary layer transition. The results found with CFD are compared to BEM Methods. The numerical investigations show a good agreement between results analytical solution and CFD prediction. The comparison is carried out to the power and flap moment. The results found in this work show how CFD can complement BEM method in the design process.