Experimental airfoil characterization under tailored turbulent conditions

Abstract

Studies of the impact of turbulent inflow conditions on the airfoil characteristics were performed within the EU FP7 project AVATAR. The aim of this study is to provide data for the validation of simulations and the improvement of engineering tools. Chord-wise pressure distributions and highly-resolved force data of the wind turbine dedicated DU 00-W-212 profile were measured in the wind tunnel in two tailored turbulent inflow conditions generated with an active grid. A sinusoidal and an intermittent pattern with customized inflow angle fluctuations were generated providing two significantly different distributions of reduced frequencies. The obtained pressure distributions and polars from the unsteady patterns are compared to the laminar baseline case.