Dust Effect on the Performance of Wind Turbine Airfoils

Nianxin Ren, Jinping Ou

.

DOI: 10.4236/jemaa.2009.12016                

Abstract

The full two-dimensional Navier-Stokes algorithm and the SST k-? turbulence model were used to investigate incom-pressible viscous flow past the wind turbine two-dimensional airfoil under clean and roughness surface conditions. The NACA 63-430 airfoil is chosen to be the subject, which is widely used in wind turbine airfoil and generally located at mid-span of the blade with thickness to chord length ratio of about 0.3. The numerical simulation of the airfoil under clean surface condition has been done. As a result, the numerical results had a good consistency with the experimental data. The wind turbine blade surface dust accumulation according to the operational periods in natural environment has been taken into consideration. Then, the lift coefficients and the drag coefficients of NACA 63-430 airfoil have been computed under different roughness heights, different roughness areas and different roughness locations. The role that roughness plays in promoting premature transition to turbulence and flow separation has been verified by the numeri-cal results. The trends of the lift coefficients and the drag coefficients with the roughness height and roughness area increasing have been obtained. What’s more, the critical values of roughness height, roughness area, and roughness location have been proposed. Furthermore, the performance of the airfoil under different operational periods has been simulated, and an advice for the period of cleaning wind turbine blades is proposed. As a result, the numerical simula-tion method has been verified to be economically available for investigation of the dust effect on wind turbine airfoils.

Keywords

NACA 63-430 Airfois, Lift Coefficient, Drag Coefficient, Roughness Height, Roughness Area, Roughness Location

Conflicts of Interest

The authors declare no conflicts of interest.

References

[1]	R. Van and W. A. Timmer, “Roughness sensitivity considerations for thick rotor blade airfoils,” in 41st Aerospace Sciences Meeting, Reno, USA, pp. 472-480, 2003.
[2]	G. K. Mohammed and M. K. Aboelyazied, “Effect of dust on the performance of wind turbines,” Desalination, Vol. 209, No. 1-3, pp. 209-220, April 30, 2007.
[3]	W. H. Wade and P. R. Alric, “Numerical prediction of unsteady vortex shedding for large leading-edge roughness,” Computers & Fluids, Vol. 33, No. 3, pp. 405- 434, March 2004.
[4]	F. R. Menter, “Zonal two-equation model k–w models for aerodynamic flows,” in 24th Fluid Dynamics Conference, Orlando, Florida, 1993.
[5]	P. Fuglsang, I. Antoniou, and S. D. Kristian, “Wind tunnel tests of the FFA-W3-241, FFA-W3-301 and NACA 63-430 airfoils,” http://www.risoe.dk/rispubl/VEA/veapdf/ ris-r-1041.pdf.
[6]	N. S. Bao, F. E. Huo, and Z. Q. Ye, “Aerodynamic performance with roughness on wind turbine airfoil surface (in Chinese),” Acat Energiae Solars Sinca, Vol. 4, No. 8, pp. 458-462, 2005.