Open AccessDES vs RANS: The flatback airfoil case
Author(s) -
George Papadakis,
Μαρίνος Μανωλέσος,
Konstantinos Diakakis,
Vasilis A. Riziotis
Publication year - 2020
Publication title -
journal of physics. conference series
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.21
H-Index - 85
eISSN - 1742-6596
pISSN - 1742-6588
DOI - 10.1088/1742-6596/1618/5/052062
Subject(s) - airfoil , reynolds averaged navier–stokes equations , wake , aerodynamics , trailing edge , turbulence , aerospace engineering , computational fluid dynamics , drag , lift (data mining) , leading edge , turbine , engineering , marine engineering , mechanics , geology , computer science , physics , data mining
Using flatback airfoils at the root of wind turbine (WT) blades is becoming more popular as the WTs increase in size. The reason is that they provide significant aerodynamic, aeroelastic and structural benefits. However, due to the blunt trailing edge (TE), the wake of such airfoils is highly unsteady and rich in three-dimensional vortical structures. This poses significant challenges on the numerical simulation of the flow around them, given the highly unsteady, three-dimensional turbulent character of their wake. In this work, computational predictions for a flatback airfoil employing both RANS and DES approaches on three successively refined grids up to 25 million cells are compared with available experimental data. Results suggest that even though URANS and DDES are in good agreement in terms of lift and drag, RANS simulations fail to accurately capture the turbulent wake unsteady characteristics.