Computational Modeling of Cascade Effect on Blade Elements with an Airfoil Profile
Abstract
The aim of this project is to investigate the effect of cascade on lift and drag coefficients and the angle of attack at which lift to drag ratio is maximized using the method of CFD. The blades of wind turbines are separated by a finite distance in the azimuthal direction. The Blade Element Theory (BET) assumes a blade element to be an airfoil and the blade element is independent to each other; and conducting experiments for low solidity blades is difficult. Thus, CFD would be an appropriate method to investigate how the cascade effect would impact the aerodynamics of wind turbines. The computational results were compared with experimental results (Hoffmann 1996). User Defined Functions (UDF) of transition SST model were also tested in order to find the most optimal correlations. The results show that the lift and drag coefficients are influenced by the solidity and pitch angle.
Description
Keywords
Engineering--Mechanical
Citation
Yan, H. (2016). Computational Modeling of Cascade Effect on Blade Elements with an Airfoil Profile (Master's thesis, University of Calgary, Calgary, Canada). Retrieved from https://prism.ucalgary.ca. doi:10.11575/PRISM/25393