Open AccessExperimental study of the effect of turbulence on horizontal axis wind turbine aerodynamics
Author(s) -
Sicot Christophe,
Devinant Philippe,
Laverne Thomas,
Loyer Stéphane,
Hureau Jacques
Publication year - 2005
Publication title -
wind energy
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.743
H-Index - 92
eISSN - 1099-1824
pISSN - 1095-4244
DOI - 10.1002/we.184
Subject(s) - aerodynamics , turbulence , turbine , chord (peer to peer) , wake , wind power , aerospace engineering , turbine blade , thrust , meteorology , wind gradient , marine engineering , wind tunnel , wind profile power law , physics , engineering , computer science , electrical engineering , distributed computing
Incident flows on wind turbines are often highly turbulent, because these devices operate in the atmospheric boundary layer and often in the wake of other wind turbines. This article presents experimental investigations of the effects of a high turbulence level on wind turbine aerodynamics. Power and thrust are measured on a horizontal axis wind turbine model in the ‘Lucien Malavard’ wind tunnel. A grid is used to generate three turbulence levels (4·4%, 9% and 12%) with integral length scale of the order of magnitude of the chord length. Experiments show little effect of turbulence on the wind turbine model power and thrust. This can be justified by analysis of the aerodynamic loads along the blade. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.