Prediction of the effect of vortex generators on airfoil performance

Abstract

Vortex Generators (VGs) are widely used by the wind turbine industry, to control the flow over blade sections. The present work describes a computational fluid dynamic procedure that can handle a geometrical resolved VG on an airfoil section. After describing the method, it is applied to two different airfoils at a Reynolds number of 3 million, the FFA- W3-301 and FFA-W3-360, respectively. The computations are compared with wind tunnel measurements from the Stuttgart Laminar Wind Tunnel with respect to lift and drag variation as function of angle of attack. Even though the method does not exactly capture the measured performance, it can be used to compare different VG setups qualitatively with respect to chord- wise position, inter and intra-spacing and inclination of the VGs already in the design phase. © Published under licence by IOP Publishing Ltd.