CFD investigation on the flatback airfoil effect of 10 MW wind turbine blade

Abstract

The flatback airfoil effect on the inboard region of a large wind turbine blade was investigated by numerical analysis. Complicated flow phenomena in wind turbine blade with flatback and non-flatback airfoil were captured by Reynolds-averaged Navier-Stokes flow simulation with shear stress transport turbulence model. Although both airfoil blades were designed using blade element momentum theory to produce identical shaft power, results of three-dimensional computational fluid dynamics (CFD) flow analysis indicated that at a specific location of the root area, the flatback airfoil improved the inboard force by approximately 6 % compared with the non-flatback airfoil. We were also able to confirm that by using the flatback airfoil, the overall shaft power throughout the blade increased by 1 %, thereby restraining the bending moment exerted by the thrust force on the hub by 0.5 %. Moreover, numerical analysis results indicated that the flatback airfoil blade reduced the size of the secondary vortex around the blade root area and its progress in the secondary direction in comparison with the non-flatback airfoil blade. The shape of the flatback airfoil on the trailing edge weakened the adverse pressure gradient migrating from the lower to the upper surface. Regardless of the flatback airfoils, the tip vortex core of the outboard region formed on the suction surface leading edge and strongly rolled up by the pressure surface boundary layers due to the large pressure difference between the suction and pressure surfaces in the blade tip region. This remarkable strong tip vortex developed downstream and raked up the boundary layer of the blade trailing edge with low energy.