The Aerodynamics of Wind Turbines
Jens Nørkær Sørensen
Department of Mechanical Engineering, DTU
Abstract:
From an outsider's viewpoint, the aerodynamics of wind turbines may seem simple compared with the aerodynamics of fixed-wing aircraft or helicopters. However, wind turbines have several added complexities. Most prominently, aerodynamic stall is always an intrinsic part of the wind turbines operational envelope, the inflow is typically turbulent and unsteady, and the wind turbines are often placed in clusters. The presentation will be introduced by giving a brief state-of-the-art and a historical survey over aerodynamic research in wind energy. Next, I will show some recent research results obtained in our wind energy group at DTU Mechanical Engineering. In particular, I present some new results on the classical problem of the ideal rotor and a series of results from on-going research projects dealing with the modelling and simulation of turbulent flow structures in the wake behind wind turbines.