Experimental investigation of the subwing tip and its vortex structure

A better understanding of the subwing's vortex structure relative to a square tip for several angles of attack and yaw angles is provided. This comparison included subwings of various chord size and airfoil thickness. Flow visualization, together with performance and wake measurements, provided a comparison between the square tip and subwing tips during both a semi-span wind-tunnel test and a small-scale rotor hover-stand test

Analysis of model rotor blade pressures during parallel interaction with twin vortices

This paper presents and provides analysis of unsteady surface pressures measured on a model rotor blade as the blade experienced near parallel blade vortex interaction with a twin vortex system. To provide a basis for analysis, the vortex system was characterized by hot-wire measurements made in the interaction plane but in the absence of the rotor. The unsteady pressure response resulting from a single vortex interaction is then presented to provide a frame of reference for the twin vortex results. A series of twin vortex interaction cases are then presented and analyzed. It is shown that the unsteady blade pressures and forces are very sensitive to the inclination angle and separation distance of the vortex pair. When the vortex cores lie almost parallel to the blade chord, the interaction is characterized by a two-stage response associated with the sequential passage of the two cores. Conversely, when the cores lie on a plane that is almost perpendicular to the blade chord, the response is similar to that of a single vortex interaction. In all cases, the normal force response is consistent with the distribution of vertical velocity in the flow field of the vortex system. The pitching moment response, on the other hand, depends on the localized suction associated with the vortex cores as they traverse the blade chord

An evaluation of an empirical model for stall delay due to rotation for HAWTS

The objective of this study was to evaluate the Corrigan and Schillings stall delay model for predicting rotor performance for horizontal axis wind turbines. Two-dimensional (2D) wind tunnel characteristics with and without stall delay were used in the computer program PROP93 to predict performance for the NREL Combined Experiment Rotor (CER) and a lower solidity commercial machine. For the CER, predictions were made with a constant-chord/twisted blade and a hypothetical tapered/twisted blade. Results for the constant-chord/twisted blade were compared with CER data. Predicted performance using this empirical stall-delay method provided significant increases in peak power over 2D post-stall airfoil characteristics. The predicted peak power increase due to stall delay for the CER was found to be quite large (20% to 30%) as a result of its high blade solidity. For a more typical, lower-solidity commercial blade the predicted peak power increase was 15% to 20%. As described in the paper, correlation with test data was problematic due to factors not related to the stall-delay model

Wind turbine design codes: A preliminary comparison of the aerodynamics

The National Wind Technology Center of the National Renewable Energy Laboratory is comparing several computer codes used to design and analyze wind turbines. The first part of this comparison is to determine how well the programs predict the aerodynamic behavior of turbines with no structural degrees of freedom. Without general agreement on the aerodynamics, it is futile to try to compare the structural response due to the aerodynamic input. In this paper, the authors compare the aerodynamic loads for three programs: Garrad Hassan`s BLADED, their own WT-PERF, and the University of Utah`s YawDyn. This report documents a work in progress and compares only two-bladed, downwind turbines