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Micro wind turbines can be structurally integrated on top of the solid base of noise barriers near highways. A number of performance factors were assessed with holistic experiments in wind tunnel and in the field. The wind turbines underperformed when exposed in yawed flow conditions. The theoretical cosθ theories for yaw misalignment did not always predict power correctly. Inverter losses turned out to be crucial especially in standby mode. Combination of standby losses with yawed flow losses and low wind speed regime may even result in a net power consuming turbine. The micro wind turbine control system for maintaining optimal power production underperformed in the field when comparing tip speed ratios and performance coefficients with the values recorded in the wind tunnel. The turbine was idling between 20%–30% of time as it was assessed for sites with annual average wind speeds of three to five meters per second without any power production. Finally, the field test analysis showed that inadequate yaw response could potentially lead to 18% of the losses, the inverter related losses to 8%, and control related losses to 33%. The totalized loss led to a 48% efficiency drop when compared with the ideal power production measured before the inverter. Micro wind turbine’s performance has room for optimization for application in turbulent wind conditions on top of noise barriers, Energy Technology, Wind Energy

Ducted wind turbines (DWTs) can be used for energy harvesting in urban areas where non-uniform flows are caused by the presence of buildings or other surface discontinuities. For this reason, the aerodynamic performance of DWTs in yawed-flow conditions must be characterized depending upon their geometric parameters and operating conditions. A numerical study to investigate the characteristics of flow around two DWT configurations using a simplified duct-actuator disc (AD) model is carried out. The analysis shows that the aerodynamic performance of a DWT in yawed flow is dependent on the mutual interactions between the duct and the AD, an interaction that changes with duct geometry. For the two configurations studied, the highly cambered variant of duct configuration returns a gain in performance by approximately 11 % up to a specific yaw angle (α= 17.5∘) when compared to the non-yawed case; thereafter any further increase in yaw angle results in a performance drop. In contrast, performance of less cambered variant duct configuration drops for α>0∘. The gain in the aerodynamic performance is attributed to the additional camber of the duct that acts as a flow-conditioning device and delays duct wall flow separation inside of the duct for a broad range of yaw angles., Wind Energy

Purpose: When simulating fluid-structure interaction (FSI), it is often essential that the no-slip condition is accurately enforced at the wetted boundary of the structure. This paper aims to evaluate the relative strengths and limitations of the penalty and Lagrange multiplier methods, within the context of modelling FSI, through a comparative analysis. Design/methodology/approach: In the immersed boundary method, the no-slip condition is typically imposed by augmenting the governing equations of the fluid with an artificial body force. The relative accuracy and computational time of the penalty and Lagrange multiplier formulations of this body force are evaluated by using each to solve three test problems, namely, flow through a channel, the harmonic motion of a cylinder through a stationary fluid and the vortex-induced vibration (VIV) of a cylinder. Findings: The Lagrange multiplier formulation provided an accurate solution, especially when enforcing the no-slip condition, and was robust as it did not require “tuning” of problem specific parameters. However, these benefits came at a higher computational cost relative to the penalty formulation. The penalty formulation achieved similar levels of accuracy to the Lagrange multiplier formulation, but only if the appropriate penalty factor was selected, which was difficult to determine a priori. Originality/value: Both the Lagrange multiplier and penalty formulations of the immersed boundary method are prominent in the literature. A systematic quantitative comparison of these two methods is presented within the same computational environment. A novel application of the Lagrange multiplier method to the modelling of VIV is also provided., Green Open Access added to TU Delft Institutional Repository ‘You share, we take care!’ – Taverne project https://www.openaccess.nl/en/you-share-we-take-care Otherwise as indicated in the copyright section: the publisher is the copyright holder of this work and the author uses the Dutch legislation to make this work public., Wind Energy, Aerospace Structures & Computational Mechanics

Airborne wind energy systems often use kites made of thin membranes to save material costs and increase mobility. However, this design choice increases the complexity of the aeroelastic behaviour of the system and demands high-fidelity tools. On the aerodynamic side of the multi-physics problem, it is quite challenging to create a high quality body conforming grid due to the complexity of the geometry and the degree of deformation it undergoes. Immersed boundary methods (IBMs) are quite popular in fluid-structure interaction (FSI) problems that involve arbitrarily deforming bodies with complex geometries and are more tolerant to deformations compared to mesh deforming methods like ALE. This paper will look at some of the popular IBMs, outline criteria to evaluate their applicability, and discuss the limitations they have in fulfilling those in problems involving thin membranes., Wind Energy

A novel immersed boundary method based on a domain decomposition approach is proposed in the context of a finite element discretisation method. It is applicable to incompressible flows past rigid, deforming, or moving bodies. In this method, unlike most immersed boundary methods, strong boundary conditions are imposed in the regions of the computational domain that are occupied by the structure. In order to achieve this, the proposed formulation decomposes the computational domain by splitting the finite element test functions into solid and fluid parts. In the continuous Galerkin formulation, this produces a smeared representation of the fluid-structure interface. The absence of an immersed boundary forcing term implies that the method itself has no influence on the CFL stability criterion. Furthermore, the stiffness matrix in the momentum equation is sparser than compared with other forcing immersed boundary methods, and symmetry and positive-definiteness of the Laplacian operator in the pressure equation is preserved. As shown in this paper, stability and accurate imposition of boundary conditions make the method promising for high Reynolds number flows. The method is applied to the simulations of two-dimensional laminar flow over stationary and moving cylinders, as well as a moderately high Reynolds number flow past an aerofoil. Good results are obtained when compared with those from previous experimental and numerical studies., Green Open Access added to TU Delft Institutional Repository ‘You share, we take care!’ – Taverne project https://www.openaccess.nl/en/you-share-we-take-care Otherwise as indicated in the copyright section: the publisher is the copyright holder of this work and the author uses the Dutch legislation to make this work public., Wind Energy

This paper assesses wind resource characteristics and energy yield for micro wind turbines integrated on noise barriers. An experimental set-up with sonic anemometers placed on top of the barrier in reference positions is realized. The effect on wind speed magnitude, inflow angle and turbulence intensity is analysed. The annual energy yield of a micro wind turbine is estimated and compared using data from a micro-wind turbine wind tunnel experiment and field data. Electrical energy costs are discussed as well as structural integration cost reduction and the potential energy yield could decrease costs. It was found that instantaneous wind direction towards the barrier and the height of observation play an influential role for the results. Wind speed increases in perpendicular flows while decreases in parallel flow, by +35% down to −20% from the reference. The azimuth of the noise barrier expressed in wind field rotation angles was found to be influential resulted in 50%–130% changes with respect to annual energy yield. A micro wind turbine (0.375 ​kW) would produce between 100 and 600 ​kWh annually. Finally, cost analysis with cost reductions due to integration and the energy yield changes due to the barrier, show a LCOE reduction at 60%–90% of the reference value., Energy Technology, Wind Energy

For the purpose of uncertainty propagation a new quadrature rule technique is proposed that has positive weights, has high degree, and is constructed using only samples that describe the probability distribution of the uncertain parameters. Moreover, nodes can be added to the quadrature rule, resulting in a sequence of nested rules. The rule is constructed by iterating over the samples of the distribution and exploiting the null space of the Vandermonde system that describes the nodes and weights, in order to select which samples will be used as nodes in the quadrature rule. The main novelty of the quadrature rule is that it can be constructed using any number of dimensions, using any basis, in any space, and using any distribution. It is demonstrated both theoretically and numerically that the rule always has positive weights and therefore has high convergence rates for sufficiently smooth functions. The convergence properties are demonstrated by approximating the integral of the Genz test functions. The applicability of the quadrature rule to complex uncertainty propagation cases is demonstrated by determining the statistics of the flow over an airfoil governed by the Euler equations, including the case of dependent uncertain input parameters. The new quadrature rule significantly outperforms classical sparse grid methods., Wind Energy

Ducted Wind Turbines (DWTs) can be used for energy harvesting in urban areas where non-uniform inflows might be the cause of aerodynamic and acoustic performance degradation. For this reason, an aerodynamic and aeroacoustic analysis of DWTs in yawed inflow condition is performed for two duct geometries: a baseline commercial DWT model, DonQi®, and one with a duct having a higher cross-section camber with respect to the baseline, named DonQi D5. The latter has been obtained from a previous optimization study. A numerical investigation using Lattice-Boltzmann Very-Large-Eddy Simulations is presented. Data confirm that the aerodynamic performance improvement, i.e. increase of the power coefficient, is proportional to the increase of the duct thrust force coefficient. It is found that, placing the DWT at a yaw angle of 7.5°, the aerodynamic performances of the DonQi D5 DWT model are less affected by the yaw angle. On the other hand, this configuration shows an increase of broadband noise with respect to the baseline DonQi® one, both in non-yawed and yawed inflow conditions. This is associated to turbulent boundary layer trailing edge noise due to the turbulent flow structures developing along the surface of the duct., Wind Energy

A novel approach is proposed to reduce, compared with the conventional binning approach, the large number of aeroelastic code evaluations that are necessary to obtain equivalent loads acting on wind turbines. These loads describe the effect of long-term environmental variability on the fatigue loads of a horizontal-axis wind turbine. In particular, Design Load Case 1.2, as standardized by IEC, is considered. The approach is based on numerical integration techniques and, more specifically, quadrature rules. The quadrature rule used in this work is a recently proposed “implicit” quadrature rule, which has the main advantage that it can be constructed directly using measurements of the environment. It is demonstrated that the proposed approach yields accurate estimations of the equivalent loads using a significantly reduced number of aeroelastic model evaluations (compared with binning). Moreover, the error introduced by the seeds (introduced by averaging over random wind fields and sea states) is incorporated in the quadrature framework, yielding an even further reduction in the number of aeroelastic code evaluations. The reduction in computational time is demonstrated by assessing the fatigue loads on the NREL 5 MW reference offshore wind turbine in conjunction with measurement data obtained at the North Sea, for both a simplified and a full load case., Wind Energy

An efficient algorithm is proposed for Bayesian model calibration, which is commonly used to estimate the model parameters of non-linear, computationally expensive models using measurement data. The approach is based on Bayesian statistics: using a prior distribution and a likelihood, the posterior distribution is obtained through application of Bayes' law. Our novel algorithm to accurately determine this posterior requires significantly fewer discrete model evaluations than traditional Monte Carlo methods. The key idea is to replace the expensive model by an interpolating surrogate model and to construct the interpolating nodal set maximizing the accuracy of the posterior. To determine such a nodal set an extension to weighted Leja nodes is introduced, based on a new weighting function. We prove that the convergence of the posterior has the same rate as the convergence of the model. If the convergence of the posterior is measured in the Kullback-Leibler divergence, the rate doubles. The algorithm and its theoretical properties are verified in three different test cases: analytical cases that confirm the correctness of the theoretical findings, Burgers' equation to show its applicability in implicit problems, and finally the calibration of the closure parameters of a turbulence model to show the effectiveness for computationally expensive problems., accepted author manuscript, Wind Energy

Ducted Wind Turbines (DWTs) are used for energy harvesting in urban areas where the flow is non-uniform in comparison to the free-field because of the presence of buildings or other surface discontinuities. For this reason, the aerodynamic performance and far-field noise of DWTs in yawed inflow conditions must be characterized. Both the aerodynamic and the acoustic fields are dependent on the geometry of the duct. In this study, the effect of the duct geometry is analysed with high fidelity numerical simulations carried out with the lattice-Boltzmann method., Wind Energy

A modified free-wake vortex ring model is proposed to compute the dynamics of a floating horizontal-axis wind turbine, which is divided into two parts. The near wake model uses a blade bound vortex model and trailed vortex model, which is developed based on vortex filament method with straight lifting lines assumption. By contrast, the far wake model is based on the vortex ring method. The proposed model is a good compromise between accuracy and computational cost, for example when compared with more complex vortex methods. The present model is used to assess the influence of floating platform motions on the performance of a horizontal-axis wind turbine rotor. The results are validated on the 5 MW NREL rotor and compared with other aerodynamic models for the same rotor subjected to different platform motions. The results show that the proposed method is reliable. In addition, the proposed method is less time consuming and has similar accuracy when comparing with more advanced vortex based methods., Wind Energy

A modified free-wake vortex ring model is proposed to compute the dynamics of a floating horizontal-axis wind turbine, which is divided into two parts. The near wake model uses a blade bound vortex model and trailed vortex model, which is developed based on vortex filament method with straight lifting lines assumption. By contrast, the far wake model is based on the vortex ring method. The proposed model is a good compromise between accuracy and computational cost, for example when compared with more complex vortex methods. The present model is used to assess the influence of floating platform motions on the performance of a horizontal-axis wind turbine rotor. The results are validated on the 5 MW NREL rotor and compared with other aerodynamic models for the same rotor subjected to different platform motions. The results show that the proposed method is reliable. In addition, the proposed method is less time consuming and has similar accuracy when comparing with more advanced vortex based methods., Wind Energy

The complex aerodynamic interactions between the rotor and the duct has to be accounted for the design of ducted wind turbines (DWTs). A numerical study to investigate the characteristics of flow around the DWT using a simplified duct–actuator disc (AD) model is carried out. Inviscid and viscous flow calculations are performed to understand the effects of the duct shape and variable AD loadings on the aerodynamic performance coefficients. The analysis shows that the overall aerodynamic performance of the DWT can be increased by increasing the duct cross-sectional camber. Finally, flow fields using viscous calculations are examined to interpret the effects of inner duct wall flow separation on the overall DWT performance., Wind Energy

Multi-element ducts are used to improve the aerodynamic performance of ducted wind turbines (DWTs). Steady-state, two-dimensional computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulations are performed for a multi-element duct geometry consisting of a duct and a flap; the goal is to evaluate the effects on the aerodynamic performance of the radial gap length and the deflection angle of the flap. Solutions from inviscid and viscous flow calculations are compared. It is found that increasing the radial gap length results in an augmentation of the total thrust generated by the DWT, whereas a larger deflection angle has an opposite effect. Reasonable to good agreement is seen between the inviscid and viscous flow calculations, except for multi-element duct configurations characterized by large flap deflection angles. The viscous effects become stronger at large flap deflection angles, and the inviscid calculations are incapable of taking this phenomenon into account., Wind Energy

To advance the design of a multimegawatt vertical-axis wind turbine (VAWT), application-specific airfoils need to be developed. In this research, airfoils are tailored for a VAWT with variable pitch. A genetic algorithm is used to optimise the airfoil shape considering a balance between the aerodynamic and structural performance of airfoils. At rotor scale, the aerodynamic objective aims to create the required optimal loading while minimising losses. The structural objective focusses on maximising the bending stiffness. Three airfoils from the Pareto front are selected and analysed using the actuator cylinder model and a prescribed-wake vortex code. The optimal pitch schedule is determined, and the loadings and power performance are studied for different tip-speed ratios and solidities. The comparison of the optimised airfoils with similar airfoils from the first generation shows a significant improvement in performance, and this proves the necessity to properly select the airfoil shape., Wind Energy

During the design phase of an offshore wind turbine, it is required to assess the impact of loads on the turbine life time. Due to the varying environmental conditions, the effect of various uncertain parameters has to be studied to provide meaningful conclusions. Incorporating such uncertain parameters in this regard is often done by applying binning, where the probability density function under consideration is binned and in each bin random simulations are run to estimate the loads. A different methodology for quantifying uncertainties proposed in this work is polynomial interpolation, a more efficient technique that allows to more accurately predict the loads on the turbine for specific load cases. This efficiency is demonstrated by applying the technique to a power production test problem and to IEC Design Load Case 1.1, where the ultimate loads are determined using BLADED. The results show that the interpolating polynomial is capable of representing the load model. Our proposed surrogate modeling approach therefore has the potential to significantly speed up the design and analysis of offshore wind turbines by reducing the time required for load case assessment., Wind Energy

Urban wind energy research is crucial for the success or failure of wind turbines installed in the built environment. Research in this field is fragmented into various research groups working on different topics in isolation with seemingly few efforts of integrating the various fields. This review aims at highlighting the synergies between the various advances, particularly in aerodynamics, but also in other areas. Past and current work has been focused on establishing reliable wind statistics at the site of interest. Advances in building aerodynamics have provided new insight on the local flow occurring at the rotor location. An outlook toward future research and the need to treat the different flow scales in a holistic manner is emphasized given also the recent advances in rotor aerodynamics related to the effect of flow skewness and turbulence. This will shed light on the critical issues that need to be addressed by scientists in order to make urban wind energy viable for decentralized generation. Various other present challenges are discussed briefly including structural aspects, noise emissions, economics and visual impact. Research in this field should be the guidepost for more targeted certification standards, in an effort to regularize the small wind energy market., Wind Energy

This paper aims to study the aerodynamic performance of ducted wind turbines (DWT) using inviscid and viscous flow calculations by accounting for the mutual interaction between the duct and the rotor. Two generalized duct cross section geometries are considered while the rotor is modelled as an actuator disc with constant thrust coefficient. The analysis shows the opportunity to significantly increase the overall aerodynamic performance of the DWT by a correct choice of the optimal rotor loading for a given duct geometry. Present results clearly indicate that the increased duct cross section camber leads to an improved performance for a DWT. Finally, some insights on the changes occurring to the performance coefficients are obtained through a detailed flow analysis., Wind Energy

This paper reports an experimental investigation on the effect of the duct geometry on the aerodynamic performance of an aerofoil shaped ducted wind turbine (DWT). The tested two-dimensional model is composed of an aerofoil equipped with pressure taps and a uniform porous screen. The experimental setup is based on the assumption that the duct flow is axisymmetric and the rotor can be simulated as an actuator disc. Firstly, different tip clearances between the screen and the aerofoil are tested to point out the influence of this parameter on the DWT performance in terms of aerofoil pressure distribution, aerofoil lift and flow field features at the duct exit area. Then, the combined effect of tip clearance, of the angle of attack and of the screen position along the aerofoil chord is evaluated through a Design of Experiments (DoE) based approach. The analysis shows that, among the analysed range of design factor variation, increasing angle of attack and the tip clearance leads to a beneficial effect on the lift and back-pressure coefficients, while they show a poor dependence upon the screen axial position. Finally, the configuration characterized by the maximum value of all three main factors (15 degree of angle of attack, 5% of tip clearance and 30% backward to the nozzle plane), has the best values of lift coefficient and back-pressure coefficient., Wind Energy

The IEC standards prescribe an inflow wind field based on models with empirical assumptions to perform load calculations. The use of preview wind speed measurements using nacelle-mounted Lidars allows mitigation of structural loads by suggesting appropriate control action. This relationship is affected by uncertainty in site conditions and the dynamic control of wind turbine in different operation regimes. Although efforts have been put to derive the relation between the aerodynamic loading and the wind speed, there is scope to explore this relation using measurements. Deriving the load statistics based on the inflow wind field is therefore necessary to establish the correct control strategies. This study focuses on two aspects: firstly, the effect of variability in the inflow conditions due to wind speed fluctuations, turbulence and wind evolution on loading statistics and secondly, the effect of different wind turbine operation modes and Lidar measurement ranges on loading statistics. By understanding the effect of these two aspects on aerodynamic loading, a suitable control strategy can be designed by establishing correlation and coherence based look-up tables with inflow-loading relationship for each operation regime. The study defines a correlation between the Lidar measured wind speed and aerodynamic loading for three Lidar measurement ranges at below and above rated operation modes. Strong correlations are observed at above-rated operation, while uneven correlations at below-rated operation are observed. Strong correlations are observed for turbulence intensities higher than 12%. The preview distances of 50 m and 110 m provide the high correlation estimates The study of coherence between these two signals provides useful insights on the evolution of wind, the length scales present and the frequencies. The coherence remains high for wavelengths upto 200m for above-rated and below-rated operations, the time scale was found to be around 2-2.5 s and the decay, Wind Energy

Passive vane-type vortex generators (VGs) are commonly used on wind turbine blades to mitigate the effects of flow separation. However, significant uncertainty surrounds VG design guidelines. Understanding the influence of VG parameters on airfoil performance requires a systematic approach targeting wind energy-specific airfoils. Thus, the 30%-thick DU97-W-300 airfoil was equipped with numerous VG designs, and its performance was evaluated in the Delft University Low Turbulence Wind Tunnel at a chord-based Reynolds number of 2×106. Oil-flow visualizations confirmed the suppression of separation as a result of the vortex-induced mixing. Further investigation of the oil streaks demonstrated a method to determine the vortex strength. The airfoil performance sensitivity to 41 different VG designs was explored by analysing model and wake pressures. The chordwise positioning, array configuration, and vane height were of prime importance. The sensitivity to vane length, inclination angle, vane shape, and array packing density proved secondary. The VGs were also able to delay stall with simulated airfoil surface roughness. The use of the VG mounting strip was detrimental to the airfoil's performance, highlighting the aerodynamic cost of the commonly used mounting technique. Time-averaged pressure distributions and the lift standard deviation revealed that the presence of VGs increases load fluctuations in the stalling regime, compared with the uncontrolled case., Wind Energy

This paper aims to provide an explanation for the overprediction of aerodynamic loads by CFD compared to experiments for the MEXICO wind turbine rotor and improve the CFD prediction by considering laminar-turbulent transition modeling. Large deviations between CFD results and experimental measurements are observed in terms of sectional normal and tangential forces at the blade tip (r/R=0.82 and 0.92) of the MEXICO rotor operating in axial condition at the design tip speed ratio λ=6.7. The first part of this study identifies the effects of ZigZag tape, which is used in the experiment to trigger boundary layer transition, by analyzing the available experimental data of a single, non-rotating MEXICO rotor blade. The analysis indicates that ZigZag tape has a significant impact on sectional aerodynamic tip loads: it alters the boundary layer thickness and additionally reduces the effective airfoil camber besides the expected tripping. These additional effects most likely also occur in the rotating MEXICO experiment, reducing the sectional loads and hence lead to an overprediction by CFD. To eliminate the ZigZag tape interference, experimental data with an untripped blade is preferred to be used as validation case. In the second part of this study, a transitional flow simulation for the MEXICO rotor is performed by using RANS-based transition model k−kL−ω within OpenFOAM-2.1.1. The numerical results are compared against experimental data obtained from the untripped, new MEXICO experiments. The comparison gives that transitional simulation present a very good tip loads prediction for the untripped blade. The measured data also confirms that the ZigZag tape indeed has a significant influence on the blade tip loads in rotating conditions. The transition onset over 3D MEXICO blade is visualized and transition locations are identified. The results shown in the present study can explain the causes of the large differences between CFD and experiment observed in the, Wind Energy, Aerodynamics

This paper presents the experimental and numerical study on MEXICO wind turbine blades. Previous work by other researchers shows that large deviations exist in the loads comparison between numerical predictions and experimental data for the rotating MEXICO wind turbine. To reduce complexities and uncertainties, a non-rotating experimental campaign has been carried out on MEXICO blades Delft University of Technology. In this new measurement, quasi-2D aerodynamic characteristics of MEXICO blades on three spanwise sections are measured at different inflow velocities and angles of attack. Additionally, RANS simulations are performed with OpenFOAM-2.1.1 to compare numerical results against measured data. The comparison and analysis of aerodynamic loads on the blade, where three different airfoil families and geometrical transition regions are used, show that for attached flow condition, RANS computation predicts excellent pressure distribution on the NACA airfoil section (r=R D 0.92) and good agreement is observed on the DU (r=R D 0.35) and RISØ (r=R D 0.60) airfoil sections. Unexpected aerodynamic characteristics are observed at the intermediate transition regions connecting the RISØ and DU airfoils, where sudden lift force drop is found at the radial position r=R D 0.55. Through numerical flow visualization, large-scale vortical structures are observed on the suction side of the blade near the mid-span. Moreover, counter-rotating vortices are generated behind the blade at locations where unexpected loads occurs. Consequently, the RISØ airfoil could not give expected 2D aerodynamic characteristics because of upwash/downwash effects induced by these counter-rotating vortices, which make 3D effects play an important role in numerical modeling when calculating the aerodynamic loads for MEXICO rotor., Wind Energy, Aerodynamics

A PhD project is being carried out on the topic of far-wake aerodynamics of Horizontal Axis Wind Turbines (HAWTs) in yawed conditions, which has a large relevance for wind farm design and optimization. Characteristic for a turbine in yaw are the inherent unsteady and non-uniform rotor loading, and the typical wake deflection and strong three-dimensional deformation effects under influence of self-induction (see figure 1). Investigation of HAWTs in yaw is important, as the larce-scale eddies of the turbulent atmosphere dictate that a wind turbine is in practise always operating in unsteady yaw, while the resulting wake effects are already significant for small yaw angles. Despite this relevance, research into the far-wake of yawed wind turbines has been very limited and the symmetry assumptions on which common wake engineering models are based conflict with the physics of the skewed wake of a yawed turbine. Nevertheless, there is an increasing interest into this topic, as it is recognized that the effect of wake deflection can be exploited as a way to optimize the overall wind farm power production through active yaw control. For this purpose, simple two-dimensional models are applied for approximating the wake deflection, but which are unable to capture the typical three-dimensional deformation effects. In summary, there is a large gap of fundamental knowledge on wake physics in yawed conditions, and what the relevance of these phenomena is on the development and issues like the re-energization process of the far-wake. To bridge this gap, the PhD project aims at improving our understanding of the wake physics of HAWTs in yaw and to draft guidelines for reduced-order models that can be applied for wind farm design and optimization. In support of this aim, the objective is to analyze the different physical “modes” that play a role in the yawed wake, through a numerial and experimental investigation of the skewed wakes aft of HAWTs and actuator discs. The results from, Wind Energy, Aerodynamics

Flow augmentation consists in modifying mass flow across the actuation plane of a rotor to enhance energy extraction or propulsive efficiency. The talk sketches the distinction between passive and active rotor augmentation strategies. Power coefficient trends are compared analytically while numerical results illustrate differences in flow topology. Rotors are stylized as actuator disks that exert homogeneous normal forces on the steady flow of inviscid fluids to highlight the distinctive features of each augmentation principle. Passive augmentation principles have been well documented because they guide the design of ducted, shrouded and diffuser-augmented wind turbines1-6. These axisymmetric bodies decrease average static pressures on the rotor plane to increase mass flux and power coefficient. Rotor-body interactions are dominated by conservative forces5,7: the bodies don’t exchange energy with the fluid but act as augmenting devices and affect global energy balance by changing rotor state. Virtual work arguments show that bodies exert streamwise forces4,6 that can be related with the power coefficient through the law of de Vries1,6. Active flow augmentation is a rather recent theoretical concept8. Its simplest energy extraction embodiment consists of an upstream actuator that accelerates flow onto a downstream actuator. This augmentation strategy is coined as active because the upstream actuator injects (spends) energy into the flow for the downstream actuator to extract (produce) energy from a greater mass flux than if it were alone. The interaction mechanism depends on the action of non-conservative forces and actuators interact exclusively through changes in total flow enthalpy when they are sufficiently far apart. No pressure interactions occur in this asymptotic case and a closed solution exists together with an analytical power coefficient law. Parallels can be drawn with wake ingestion propeller setups9 but no practical energy extraction realizations have, Wind Energy

The practice of ducting wind turbines has shown a beneficial effect on the overall performance, when compared to an open turbine of the same rotor diameter1. However, an optimization study specifically for ducted wind turbines (DWT’s) is missing or incomplete. This work focuses on a numerical optimization of the duct orientation and the ideal loading coefficient for the rotor. A 2D planar geometry was employed to model the DWT and the rotor is modelled as an uniformly loaded actuator disc (AD). The flow-field around the DWT is obtained through numerical solutions of Reynolds-averaged-Navier-Stokes (RANS) equations2 and a steady state Lagrangian approach based on vortex ring method3 . The study determines the optimal angle of attack for the duct corresponding to the AD loading, in order to achieve the optimal performance for a given DWT configuration., Wind Energy

A new high-lift aerofoil modification for the duct has been developed and will be experimentally tested in a small wind tunnel. Aerofoils for such wind tunnel ducts typically operate in the low Reynolds number range from 2 × 105 to 6 × 105. The effect of a duct and of rotor on power and pressure drop were considered separately in previous studies. This paper focuses on the optimization of aerofoil geometry for a Reynolds number of 3 × 105 taking into account of the presence of a screen, having a pressure drop similar to a real rotor. In particular, the current work concentrates on obtaining high lift, instead of high lift-to-drag ratio. Since high lift is the only desirable feature when modifying an aerofoil for ducts, the factors most related to enhanced high-lift low Reynolds numbers aerofoil performance are investigated. Previous experimental data of a three-dimension aerofoil-shaped duct model are used. Combining these data, and applying the Liebeck type high-lift design philosophy, which is to make use of an optimal pressure recovery with aft loading, variations in thickness, camber, and the shape of leading and trailing edges are analysed through the fully inversed method. The XFOIL 6.99 code was adopted as the analyse tool in this study. With the specified velocity distribution, it is found that an increase of both camber and thickness of the duct leads to an increase in lift coefficient with the presence of the pressure drop. In particular, the thickness increment for the aft part of the aerofoil generates higher lift coefficient. The installation of screen divides the duct into two parts, the duct fore part starts from the leading edge until the screen plane, while the duct aft part includes the screen plane to trailing edge. It is observed from previous experimental data that, with the screen presence, the front stagnation point moves towards the inner part of the duct. Consequently, the pressure coefficient reduces in the front part of the suction side, a, Wind Energy