Investigation Of Aerodynamic Performance Of Special Airfoils For Horisiontal-Axis Wind Turbine

With the development of science and technology, energy demand is ever-increasing. At the same time, Environment protection is a important problem that we must faced to. Adopting horizontal-axis wind turbine to generate electricity is the major form of using wind energy to deal with above problem.The airfoil of wind turbine is the key assembly.It is the basic that designation and aerodynamic simulation of special airfoils for wind turbines. CFD is not only one of major methods of aerodynamic simulation,but also one of major problems of airfoils study.In this paper,on the basis of analysis of the actuality of wind electricity and special airfoils for wind urbines. Detailed content of some kinds of airfoils for horizontal axis wind turbine(HAWT) has introduced and characteristic of every kind of airfoils for HAWT has analysed. The unsteady flowfield of the NREL S series airfoil is simulated. Interesting conclosion has obtained. Firstly,data-base has established that include the NREL S series airfoil and the part of NACA series airfoil fitting in with wind turbines;Secondly,the airfoils use of NREL S series for wind turbines is concluded in detail. For example,the characteristic of every kind of airfoil,the fitting position of airfoils on the blade and the combinational rules of airfoils on the blade.At last, Using FLUENT CFD software .Four airfoils(S827,S901,S902 and S903) are simulated mainly for lift and drag characteristic,stall characteristic,flow separation characteristic and votex characteristic, and so on. The effect of airfoil aerodynamic characteristic is studied up on airfoil thickness through S901 and S903,airfoil camber through S902 and S903,angle of attack,reynolds number through S827,and so on,and get many significant conclusion.The effect on thickness of airfoil about earodynamic characteristic of airfoils for windturbines is studied in detail,and interesting conclusion is drawn that thick airfoils has higher lift coefficient,drag coefficient,the most lift coefficient and larger critical angle of attack.than thin airfoils.At the same time,thick airfoils occur the phenomenon of flow separation earlier than thin airfoils. The effect on airfoil camber about earodynamic characteristic of airfoils for windturbines is studied in detail, and interesting conclusion is drawn.Within specified limits,large camber airfoils has higher lift coefficient,drag coefficient,the most lift coefficient and larger critical angle of attack than small camber airfoils.At the same time, large camber airfoils occur the phenomenon of flow separation earlier than small camber airfoils.The effect on reynolds number about earodynamic characteristic of airfoils for windturbines is studied in detail,and interesting conclusion is drawn that large reynolds number has higher lift coefficient,drag coefficient and the most lift coefficient han small reynolds number. At the same time, large reynolds number occur the phenomenon of flow separation later, small critical angle of attack and the scope of votex is smaller than small reynolds number. It can provide some useful reference information for engineering application.