03 THE AERODYNAMICS

ASPECTS OF WIND TURBINE

Dr. K. V. Nagendragopal
Assistant Professor
Department of Aerospace Engineering
Indian Institute of Technology Madras
gopal@ae.iitm.ac.in

Introduction
The design of modern Horizontal Axis Wind Turbines
(HAWT) is driven by aerodynamic requirements. The wind
turbine rotor is an aerodynamic device and to understand the
mechanics of the energy conversion process it is essential to
have a basic knowledge of the aerodynamic interaction
between the rotor and airow around it and the resultant
forces. A detailed understanding of the aerodynamics must
cover a wide range of topics including 2D and 3D ow effects
in relation to the airfoil performance, aeroelastic behaviour of
the blades, stall behaviour, unsteady effects including stall
hysteresis and induction lag and so on. Here, we just present a
brief description of some basic concepts and approaches
involved in the aerodynamic calculations of modern wind
turbine design.
Basic theory
The construction of the modern wind turbines has its origin in
the development of the aircraft wing. The cross-section of the
long and slenderrotor blade has a streamlined asymmetrical
shape, with the attest side facing the oncoming air ow or
wind. This shape is called the blade's aerodynamic prole or
the airfoil shape (g.1). The aerodynamic prole is the key
factor in blade performance. Even minor alterations in the
shape of the prole can greatly alter the power curve and noise
level (g. 2). Hence, the blades are shaped to generate the
maximum power from the wind at the minimum cost. But the
nal blade design is a compromise between aerodynamic
efciency and structural safety requirements. The blade tends
to be thicker than the aerodynamic optimum close to the root,
where the stresses due to bending are greatest. While the
earlier airfoil proles have been taken from those designed for
aircraft or helicopters, new airfoil proles have been designed
in recent years specically for wind turbines.
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Wind Turbine Technology and Applications
(ISO 9001:2008)

Leading edge
Chord Line

Trailing edge

Angle of attack
Chord

Fig. 1 Typical airfoil profile

Fig. 2 Airfoils of same thickness and increasing camber

The evolution of wind turbine design over the last century has been guided by several theories
used to model the aerodynamic ow around the turbine. These theories range from simple one-
dimensional models of the airow to complex 2-D and 3-D models.
Aerodynamic models
The classic aerodynamic analysis of wind turbine rotors was developed in the early 1920s and
1930s through the work of Betz, Lock and Glauert. Several models starting from the simple
actuator disc theory have been developed in literature to explain how the kinetic energy available
in the wind is extracted by an aerodynamic device placed in the ow path. Some of these models
are (gure 3):
i. Axial Flow Model
ii. Blade Element Momentum Theory
iii. Free vortex models
iv. Numerical approaches solving 3-D Navier-Stokes equations

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(a) Axial Flow Model (b) Blade Element Momentum Model

c) Free vortex wake models

Fig. 3 Various Aerodynamic Models for Wind Turbine Aerodynamics
Axial ow model (Rankine, Froude, Betz)
The axial ow model relies on the axial momentum concept introduced by Rankine which was
further improved by Froude for marine propellers. Ideal ow conditions are considered for this
analysis. The ow is assumed to incompressible and homogeneous and rotor is assumed to be
solid. Static pressures far in front and behind the rotor are considered to be equal to the
atmospheric pressure. Frictional drag over the blades and wake behind the rotor are neglected.
The analysis is reduced to a simple energy and momentum balance as the ow goes past the rotor
in the axial plane (g. 3a) and hence allows only the maximum (ideal) performance limits to be
dened. The presence of the actuator (rotor) reduces the ow velocity just in front of the disc
compared to the far eld (free stream) velocity and further reduces just after the disc as it
expands. So the energy available for extraction is less than the energy available in the free stream.
By suitably applying the conservation of linear momentum for the rotor and the Bernoulli
equation on the downstream and upstream of the rotor plane separately, the mathematical
expression for the power extracted at the rotor plane can be derived in terms of the free stream
velocity, an axial induction factor and swept area of the rotor. A non-dimensional power
coefcient is dened by

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नीवे NIWE
Wind Turbine Technology and Applications
(ISO 9001:2008)

U is the free stream velocity, a is the axial induction factor for the rotor and is a ratio of the
reduction in velocity at the rotor to the velocity of the free stream far ahead of the rotor. The
maximum power
‫و‬ ‫ﻲو‬
extraction occurs for a = 3 giving a maximum power coefcient as C p ma x = = 0.593. This
27 physical

limit to the maximum power that can be extracted was obtained by Albert Betz in 1926 and is
called the Betz limit.
Rotor disc theory
Further improvements can be made in the analysis by considering the wake rotation induced by
the rotor. The theory includes an additional rotational induction factor a' and tip speed ratio
(TSR) dened by

W is the rotor angular velocity and 2rWa' is the induced tangential velocity for the downstream
ow.
This includes the torque developed by the rotation in the analysis. The total torque developed by
the rotor can be computed by integrating the elemental torque (blade element) from the root to
the tip of the blade (Glauert, 1935). The power extracted can then be obtained by multiplying the
torque with the rotor angular velocity and is given by

Blade element momentum theory

The Blade Element Momentum (BEM) theory combines the momentum and blade element
model to also include the blade prole and the ow behaviour around the cross-section of the
blade into the analysis.
In a typical HAWT, the ow past the airfoil prole of a rotating blade induces a surface
aerodynamic force due to the pressure differential between the upper and lower surfaces. This
force can be resolved into a component normal to the resultant ow direction called the lift and a
component parallel to the ow called the drag (g. 3). The lift causes the constrained blade to
rotate about the hub while the drag impedes the rotation. The lift and drag of the airfoil is a
function of the angle of attack, which is the angle made by the resultant wind velocity direction
with the chord of the airfoil.
Exploitation of the aerodynamic lift is the basis of the efcient design of modern wind turbines. A
prime objective in wind turbine blade design is to maximize the lift to drag ratio which can be
varied along the length of the blade. The airfoil performance is dened by non-dimensional

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parameters called Cl and Cd, the coefcient of lift and drag respectively.The aerodynamic forces
on the blade depend on the pressure and velocity distribution of the ow across the blades.

Fig. 4 Lift and Drag forces on an airfoil in a ow at an angle of attack.

Factors like the hub height, blade length and prole, air density, winds shear and wind turbulence
affect the velocity distribution. Hence, appropriate wind models need to be used to obtain the
wind velocity prole across the rotor diameter. The pressure and velocity distribution is then
used by the aerodynamic model to obtain the surface forces along the entire length of the blades.
Other factors which inuence the generated forces include blade twist, blade plan form and the
number of blades. The aerodynamic forces directly determine the blade loads and performance
of the wind turbine. From the analysis, the thrust and torque on an annular ring (element) of the
rotor with B blades and chord length c, is obtained as

These expressions can then be integrated over the length of the blade to obtain the total thrust and
power for the rotor.
The BEM modeland other advanced aerodynamic models can be used to study the effects of the
primary design variables as a function of blade pitch and wind speed on power extraction. These
models represent the physics of the uid ow in greater detail. For a rotor with xed number of
blades, the area used in the original momentum theory is called as the swept area which is
modied in the analysis by the solidity factor which includes the actual area of the blades.
Another key factor in the power performance of a rotor is the tip speed ratio (g. 4) given by

Fig. 5 Typical plot of rotor power coefficient vs. tip speed ratio for a HAWT

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Wind Turbine Technology and Applications
(ISO 9001:2008)

The blade element momentum has over the years been improved for several effects such as ow
separation, tip loss factors, dynamic stall, Reynolds's number effects and so on.
Therefore for accurate analysis of the turbine aerodynamics and predictions of the loads and
power output, it is essential to have a good understanding of the ow physics on the
blades.Further, in a wind farm consisting of several wind turbines, the airow ahead and behind a
wind turbine is affected by the presence of other wind turbines. This can give rise to issues such
as wake turbulence and needs to be modeled to improve the accuracy of the performance
prediction.

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