COMPUTATIONAL AERODYNAMICS MODELING OF A 5MW NREL WIND TURBINE
Keywords:
Aerodynamics, wind turbine, computational fluid dynamics, renewable energyAbstract
Aerodynamic performance of a large-scale 5MW offshore wind turbine rotor designed by National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) is investigated numerically using a hybrid Navier-Stokes/free wake method. This method simulates the flow over wind turbine rotor blade in the near-field region using RANS technique while models the rotor blade wake located far field by a Lagrangian wake representation. The results obtained from hybrid methodology at design condition show a good agreement with predictions from the blade element momentum theory and more computationally expensive wake-capturing simulations. In addition, a new offshore wind turbine of the same rating as NREL turbine has been created based purely on aerodynamic considerations. The performance of the two wind turbines are compared to assess the efficacy of different design approaches.
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