Comparison of the pressure distribution of a wind turbine blade based on field experiment and CFD

Abstract

Field experiment and numerical simulation are performed on a 33 kW horizontal axis wind turbine. The distribution of pressure is gathered by disposed 191 taped pressure sensors span-ward on seven particular sections of a blade. And the parameters of experimental condition of inflow and operation condition of the wind turbine are obtained at the same time. And then, the three-dimensional Reynolds averaged incompressible Navier-Stokes equations and the RNG κ-ε turbulence model are used to study the aerodynamic characteristics of the wind turbine. The numerical method is proved to be more effective by contrasting the numerical results to the field experimental data. For the calculation results of the blade pressure, the closer to the root of the blade the more consistent to the values of the experiment. A greater differential is shown at the leading edge than the trailing edge. The pressure distribution contours of the blade surface are obtained too. © Published under licence by IOP Publishing Ltd.