Aerodynamic Interference Effect between Large Wind Turbine Blade and Tower

Abstract

The aerodynamic interference effect between wind turbine blade and tower is very common in the wind turbine structure, so the study of the physical mechanism of the interference effect is both of important practical interest and profound academic interest. Firstly, the full two-dimensional Navier---Stokes algorithm and the k-ω SST turbulence model were used to investigate incompressible viscous flow past the wind turbine NACA 63-430 airfoil and tower in detail. The flow physics in the two-dimensional analysis was clarified by the aerodynamic loads acting on the wind turbine tower. The numerical results under the blade-tower interference effect and the results under a single tower were compared in view of lift and drag coefficient time histories. Furthermore, the effect of the three-dimensional blade rotation on the wind turbine tower was simulated based on the rotational sliding mesh technique and the effective large eddy simulation (LES) methods. The force perturbation acting on the tower under the blade rotational effect was clearly studied. As a result, the numerical results are very used for understanding the physical mechanism of the aerodynamic interference effect between the wind turbine blade and tower, which will be helpful for guiding the structural design of the wind turbine tower.