Open AccessA simple improvement of a tip loss model for actuator disc simulations
Author(s) -
Pirrung Georg Raimund,
Laan Maarten Paul,
RamosGarcía Néstor,
Meyer Forsting Alexander Raul
Publication year - 2020
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.2481
Subject(s) - airfoil , mechanics , rotation (mathematics) , turbine , actuator , physics , wake , turbine blade , structural engineering , control theory (sociology) , engineering , geometry , mathematics , computer science , control (management) , artificial intelligence , electrical engineering , thermodynamics
The loading of a wind turbine decreases towards the blade tip because of the velocities induced by the tip vortex. This tip loss effect has to be taken into account when performing actuator disc simulations, where the single blades of the turbine are not modeled. A widely used method applies a factor on the axial and tangential loading of the turbine. This factor decreases when approaching the blade tip. It has been shown that the factor should be different for the axial and tangential loading of the turbine to model the rotation of the resulting force vector at the airfoil sections caused by the induced velocity. The present article contains the derivation of a simple correction for the tangential load factor that takes this rotation into account. The correction does not need any additional curve fitting but just depends on the local airfoil characteristics and angle of attack. Actuator disc computations with the modified tip loss correction show improved agreement with results from actuator line, free wake lifting line, and blade element momentum simulations.