Modelling and Simulation of flow around Wind Turbine Blade by using Actuator Surface Model

Abstract

This paper presents the simulation of two dimensional flows around a wind turbine blade by using the improved hybrid model. Modeling of a flow field in wind farm requires prohibitive computational cost due to complex geometry of wind turbine blades. The equivalent simplified models replace the real geometry of wind turbine blades in order to represent flow field with significantly reduced computational cost. The modeling method combines blade element approach for forces calculation and NavierStokes equations for the flow field simulation. Blades are replaced with surfaces, where pressure discontinuity is applied which represent normal forces, and source terms are applied in the vicinity of surfaces which represent tangential forces. The improved model results of flow field are then compared with existing models.