Three Dimensional CFD Simulations of A Wind Turbine Blade Section; Validation

Abstract

The purpose of present study is to approve use of ANSYS software as a tool for wind turbine simulations. Based on workbench platform designmodeler, mechanical mesh and fluent components, the study attempts to reproduce experimental measurements performed on standstill outboard MEXICO blade section in the low speed low turbulence (LTT), a facility at Delft University of Technology. The outboard MEXICO blade section geometry same as the one used in experiments is adopted for numerical simulations. Three set of angle of attack are taken as variable with inlet velocity hold at 35 m/s and fluid flow viscosity at 1.462kgms -2 in every simulation. Steady state pressure based solver is utilized to solve continuity and momentum Navier-Stoke equations with k - SST turbulent model taken as closure. Pressure and velocity are decoupled via SIMPLE algorithm and discretization scheme specified to second order upwind for momentum, turbulent kinetic energy and dissipation rate, while pressure interpolation scheme settled to second order. Computed pressure coefficient around selected airfoil sections is compared to experiment measurements which include; RISOE_121 at 60%R and NACA64418 at 92%R. Comparison shows good agreement between the CFD simulation and experiment results, but slight variation is observed at around RISOE_121 airfoil.