Title
Numerical Investigation of Aerodynamic Performance and Loads of a Novel Dual Rotor Wind Turbine
Campus Units
Aerospace Engineering
Document Type
Article
Publication Version
Published Version
Publication Date
7-21-2016
Journal or Book Title
Energies
Volume
9
Issue
7
First Page
571
DOI
10.3390/en9070571
Abstract
The objective of this paper is to numerically investigate the effects of the atmospheric boundary layer on the aerodynamic performance and loads of a novel dual-rotor wind turbine (DRWT). Large eddy simulations are carried out with the turbines operating in the atmospheric boundary layer (ABL) and in a uniform inflow. Two stability conditions corresponding to neutral and slightly stable atmospheres are investigated. The turbines are modeled using the actuator line method where the rotor blades are modeled as body forces. Comparisons are drawn between the DRWT and a comparable conventional single-rotor wind turbine (SRWT) to assess changes in aerodynamic efficiency and loads, as well as wake mixing and momentum and kinetic energy entrainment into the turbine wake layer. The results show that the DRWT improves isolated turbine aerodynamic performance by about 5%–6%. The DRWT also enhances turbulent axial momentum entrainment by about 3.3" role="presentation" style="box-sizing: inherit; display: inline; line-height: normal; text-align: left; word-spacing: normal; word-wrap: normal; white-space: nowrap; float: none; direction: ltr; max-width: none; max-height: none; min-width: 0px; min-height: 0px; border: 0px; padding: 0px; margin: 0px; position: relative;">3.3 %. The highest entrainment is observed in the neutral stability case when the turbulence in the ABL is moderately high. Aerodynamic loads for the DRWT, measured as out-of-plane blade root bending moment, are marginally reduced. Spectral analyses of ABL cases show peaks in unsteady loads at the rotor passing frequency and its harmonics for both rotors of the DRWT.
Rights
This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC-BY) license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
Copyright Owner
The authors
Copyright Date
2016
Language
en
File Format
application/pdf
Recommended Citation
Moghadassian, Benham; Rosenberg, Aaron; and Sharma, Anupam, "Numerical Investigation of Aerodynamic Performance and Loads of a Novel Dual Rotor Wind Turbine" (2016). Aerospace Engineering Publications. 71.
https://lib.dr.iastate.edu/aere_pubs/71
Comments
This article is from Energies 2016, 9(7), 571; doi:10.3390/en9070571. Posted with permission.