Development of Free Vortex Wake Method for Aerodynamic Loads on Rotor Blades

Paper in proceeding, 2014

The aerodynamics of a wind turbine is governed by the flow around the rotor, where the prediction of air loads on rotor blades in different operational conditions and its relation to rotor structural dynamics is crucial for design purposes. One of the most important challenges in wind turbine aerodynamics is therefore to accurately predict the forces on the blade, where the blade and wake are modeled by different approaches such as the Blade Element Momentum (BEM) theory, the vortex method and Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD). A free vortex wake method, based on the potential, inviscid and irrotational flow, is developed to study the aerodynamic loads. The results are compared with the BEM method, the GENUVP code and CFD.