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Within an international collaboration framework, the accuracy of rotor aerodynamic models used for design load calculations of wind turbines is being assessed. Where the use of high-fidelity computation fluid dynamics (CFD) and mid-fidelity free-vortex wake (FVW) models has become commonplace within the wind energy community, these still fail to meet the requirements in terms of execution time and computational cost needed for design load calculations. The fast but engineering fidelity blade-element/momentum (BEM) method can therefore still be considered the industry workhorse for design load simulations. At the same time, upscaling of wind turbine rotors makes inflow non-uniformities (e.g. shear, veer, turbulence) more important. The objective of this work is to assess model accuracy in non-uniform inflow conditions, which violate several BEM assumptions. Thereto a comparison in turbulent inflow has been executed including a wide variety of codes, focusing on the DanAero field measurements, where a 2.3-MW turbine was equipped with, among other sensors, a pressure measurement apparatus. The results indicate that, although average load patterns are in good agreement, this does not hold for the unsteady loads that drive fatigue damage and aero-elastic stability. A simplified comparison round in vertical shear was initiated to investigate the observed differences in a more controlled manner. A consistent offset in load amplitude was observed between CFD and free-vortex codes on the one hand and BEM-type codes on the other hand. To shed more light on the observations, dedicated efforts are ongoing to pinpoint the cause for these differences, in the end leading to guidelines for an improved BEM implementation.

The present paper regards axial and angular momentum considerations combining detailed loads from pressure sensors and the flow field mapped with particle image velocimetry (PIV) techniques. For this end, the study implements important results leaning on experimental data from wind tunnel measurements of the New Mexico project. The measurements, taken on a fully instrumented rotor, were carried out in the German Dutch Wind tunnel Organisation (DNW) testing the MEXICO rotor in the open section. The work revisits the so-called momentum theory, showing that the integral thrust and torque measured on the rotor correspond with an extent of 0.7 and 2.4% respectively to the momentum balance of the global flow field using the general momentum equations. Likewise, the sectional forces combined with the local induced velocities are found to plausibly obey the annular streamtube theory, albeit some limitations in the axial momentum become more apparent at high inductions after a=0.3. Finally, azimuth induced velocities are measured and compared to predictions from models of Glauert and Burton et al., showing close-matching forecasts for blade spans above 25%., QC 20170217