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Textbook General Momentum Theory For Horizontal Axis Wind Turbines 1St Edition Jens Norkaer Sorensen Auth Ebook All Chapter PDF
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RESEARCH
TOPICS
IN WIND
ENERGY 4
General
Momentum
Theory for
Horizontal Axis
Wind Turbines
123
Research Topics in Wind Energy
Volume 4
Series editor
Joachim Peinke, University of Oldenburg, Oldenburg, Germany
e-mail: peinke@uni-oldenburg.de
About this Series
The series Research Topics in Wind Energy publishes new developments and
advances in the fields of Wind Energy Research and Technology, rapidly and
informally but with a high quality. Wind Energy is a new emerging research field
characterized by a high degree of interdisciplinarity. The intent is to cover all the
technical contents, applications, and multidisciplinary aspects of Wind Energy,
embedded in the fields of Mechanical and Electrical Engineering, Physics,
Turbulence, Energy Technology, Control, Meteorology and Long-Term Wind
Forecasts, Wind Turbine Technology, System Integration and Energy Economics,
as well as the methodologies behind them. Within the scope of the series are
monographs, lecture notes, selected contributions from specialized conferences and
workshops, as well as selected PhD theses. Of particular value to both the
contributors and the readership are the short publication timeframe and the
worldwide distribution, which enable both wide and rapid dissemination of research
output. The series is promoted under the auspices of the European Academy of
Wind Energy.
123
Jens Nørkær Sørensen
Department of Wind Energy
Technical University of Denmark
Lyngby
Denmark
v
vi Preface
The book is primarily intended for researchers and experienced students with a
basic knowledge of fluid mechanics wishing to understand and expand their
knowledge of wind turbine aerodynamics. The author has strived to make the book
self-consistent, hence all necessary derivations are shown, and it should not be
necessary to seek help in other literature to understand the content in this book.
Chapter 1 contains a brief review of the history of wind energy and of the
aerodynamics of wind turbines. In Chap. 2 the main basic definitions, to be used later
in the thesis, are introduced. In Chap. 3 the one-dimensional axial momentum theory
is revisited and the errors committed when using locally a one-dimensional approach
on a differential element is assessed. Furthermore, it is demonstrated how
one-dimensional axial momentum theory may be applied to analyse the additional
performance achieved for rotors located in diffusers and to derive corrections for
rotors tested in wind tunnels. Finally, the chapter contains a description of how
one-dimensional momentum theory can be applied to the somewhat exotic case of a
wind turbine driven vehicle. In Chap. 4 the equations forming the general
momentum theory is derived. Usually in textbooks, these equations are derived with
some a priori unverified assumptions, which in many cases have caused misinter-
pretations with respect to the importance of the various terms. In the present work,
the axial momentum equation is first derived without any simplifying assumptions,
after which different approaches are derived from the full equation, and the terms
that usually are omitted in the general momentum theory are assessed by compar-
ative CFD computations. Chapter 5 continues with a description and comparison of
different proposals for optimum aerodynamic rotor models based on the general
momentum theory. In Chap. 6 one of the aerodynamics models, the Joukowsky
model, is analysed in detail for small tip speed ratios. The analysis is carried both
analytically and by comparison to additional CFD computations. Chapter 7 intro-
duces the blade-element/momentum (BEM) theory. The chapter gives both a survey
of the main ingredients in the ‘standard’ method and the various ‘engineering
adds-on’. Furthermore, techniques for extending the ‘standard’ approach by inclu-
sion of correction terms are introduced and compared. In Chap. 8 the tip correction is
discussed in detail, and it is shown that the ‘traditional’ Prandtl/Glauert tip correction
contains an inherent inconsistency in the vicinity of the tip when using tabulated
airfoil data. A remedy to solve this problem is proposed and a new additional tip
correction, based on the so-called decambering technique, is introduced. In Chap. 9
an analytical solution to the finite-bladed optimum Betz rotor is given, and the results
are compared to other optimum rotor models, both with respect to performance and
resulting rotor geometry. Finally, in the Appendix, the CFD technique used for
assessing the various terms in the analysed rotor models is described.
Reference
Glauert, H.: Airplane Propellers. division L. In: Durand WF (ed.) Aerodynamic Theory, vol. IV,
pp. 169–360. Springer: Berlin (1935)
Acknowledgments
This book was written during a sabbatical leave in 2014, where I was given the
opportunity to collect and edit previously published works regarding wind turbine
aerodynamics and combine it with new material and ideas that emerged during the
leave.
I would like to thank the Head of DTU Wind Energy, Peter Hauge Madsen, for
granting the sabbatical leave and for encouraging me to write this book. During my
leave I stayed at different places in Europe, and I would like to thank Stefan Ivanell
for his hospitality during my stay at Uppsala University in Visby, Thomas Leweke
for kindly hosting me at IRPHE/CNRS in Marseille, and Xabier Munduate for his
hospitality at CENER in Pamplona.
Part of this book is the result of many years of collaboration with some of my
very skillful colleagues. In particular, I would like to thank Robert Mikkelsen, Wen
Zhong Shen and Valery Okulov for contributing with invaluable input to the work.
Also, the contributions from Néstor Ramos Garcia and Kaya Onur Dag are greatly
appreciated.
I would also like to thank my colleagues at the Section of Fluid Mechanics for
the many years of collaboration on aerodynamics and fluid mechanics. In particular,
I wish to thank Martin O.L. Hansen, Kurt S. Hansen, Stig Øye and Henrik
Bredmose for many inspiring discussions. I would also like to thank Steen Krenk
for encouraging me to write and publish the book.
I acknowledge financial support from the IRPWIND mobility program and from
the Danish Council for Strategic Research for the project ‘Center for Computational
Wind Turbine Aerodynamics and Atmospheric Turbulence’ (grant
2104-09-067216/DSF) (COMWIND: http://www.comwind.org).
Finally, last but not least, I am grateful for the support and understanding I got
from my dear family—my wife Lena and my two boys, Thorbjørn and Clement—
during the sabbatical leave and during the many late hours at the office.
vii
Contents
1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
1.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
1.1.1 A Brief Historical Review of Wind Energy . . . . . . . . . . . 1
1.1.2 The Aerodynamics of Wind Turbines . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
2 Basic Definitions. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
ix
x Contents
7 Blade-Element/Momentum Theory . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 99
7.1 Basics of the ‘Standard’ Blade-Element/Momentum Theory . . . . . 100
7.2 Engineering Modifications . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 103
7.2.1 Tip Correction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 103
7.2.2 Correction for Heavily Loaded Rotors. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 104
7.2.3 Yaw Correction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 105
7.2.4 Dynamic Wake . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 105
7.2.5 Airfoil Data . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 106
7.3 Alternative Formulations of the BEM Theory. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 107
7.3.1 The Approach by Glauert . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 109
7.3.2 Alternative Model 1 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 109
7.3.3 Alternative Model 2 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 110
7.3.4 Alternative Model 3 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 111
7.3.5 Overview of the Models . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 112
Contents xi
1.1 Introduction
Windmills have existed in more than 2000 years and mainly been used for water
pumping and grinding purposes. Except for propulsion of sailing ships, the wind-
mill is the oldest device for exploiting the energy of the wind. Today, the most
popular turbine type is the 3-bladed horizontal-axis wind turbine, the so-called
Danish concept, but many different types of windmills have been invented since the
appearance of the ancient Persian vertical-axis windmill. In the western part of
Europe, the Dutch windmill was for many years the most popular and formed the
basis for the development of the modern wind turbine in the twentieth century. In
July 1887, the Scotsman James Blyth built a cloth-sailed wind turbine in Marykirk
in Scotland (note that a windmill is a machine intended for grinding grain, whereas
the term wind turbine refers to an electricity producing machine). The produced
electricity from the turbine was used to charge accumulators, which powered the
lights in his cottage, which thus became the first house in the world to be powered
by wind-generated electricity. The design and performance of the wind turbine was
later reported in a paper published by Philosophical Society of Glasgow (Blyth
1888, 1894). Over the next years, Blyth did a series of experiments on wind energy,
which resulted in different designs and a UK patent. The same year as Blyth build
his wind turbine; Charles F. Brush in the USA constructed the first automatically
operated electricity producing wind turbine. Brush’s machine was constructed with
a 17-m-diameter rotor, equipped with 144 blades, and a 12-kW generator.
At the same time, unaware of the work of Blyth and Brush, basic wind turbine
research was undertaken by Poul La Cour in Denmark. La Cour carried out sys-
tematic airfoil studies using his own developed wind tunnel and the experimental
wind turbines at Askov ‘folk high school’. Among several important discoveries, he
found that rather than being pushed by the wind, as was generally believed to be the
main aerodynamic principle at that time, the driving force on the rotor blades is
formed by suction (Fig. 1.1). Further, La Cour demonstrated that fast rotating wind
turbines with few rotor blades are most efficient for producing electricity (La Cour
1897, 1901). Based on his ideas, the design of aerodynamically efficient rotor
blades soon advanced, and in 1918, about 3 % of the Danish electricity con-
sumption was covered by wind turbines. While the first wind turbines used prim-
itive airfoil shapes and produced electricity through a dynamo located in the tower,
a new-generation wind turbines were developed in the mid-1920s that used mod-
ified airplane propellers to drive direct current generators installed in the nacelle. An
example of this is the Jacobs wind turbine developed by Jacobs Wind Electric
Company that from the early 1930s found widespread use in USA to provide
lighting for farms and to charge batteries. However, in the following period
fuel-based power became cheap and forced wind power out of the marked.
Because of supply crises, renewed interest was paid to wind energy during
World War II. This lead to the construction of the American 1.25-MW
Smith-Putnam machine, installed in Vermont in 1941, and the Danish F.L. Smith
turbines built in 1941–42. With a concept based on an upwind rotor with stall
regulation and the use of modern airfoils, the F.L. Smith turbines can be considered
as the forerunners of modern wind turbines. After World War II, the design phi-
losophy of the F.L. Smith turbine was developed further, resulting in the Gedser
turbine, which was constructed in 1957 (Fig. 1.2). At the same time, in Germany,
Ulrich Hütter developed a new approach comprising of two fibreglass blades
Fig. 1.2 Left The 200-kW Gedser turbine (1957). Right Modern 2.5-MW wind turbine located in
a cluster
mounted downwind on a teetering hub. These turbines later became prototypes for
the new generation of wind turbines that was put into production after the oil crisis
in 1973. In many countries, national programs for investigating the potential of
producing electricity from the wind were launched in the mid-1970s and big dem-
onstration projects were carried out, e.g., in USA, Germany, Great Britain, Sweden,
the Netherlands, and Denmark. This together with the effort of a large number of
small industries formed the basis for what is today an industry with a global annual
turnover of more than 50 billion USD and an annual average growth rate of more than
20 %. By now (june 2015), the largest wind turbine is the Vestas 8 MW and
D = 164 m machine. State-of-the-art wind turbines are today often placed in large
wind farms with a production size corresponding to a nuclear power plant.
basic assumptions forming the BEM technique. It is the purpose of the present work
to reconsider and assess the validity of the equations, which form the basis of the
general momentum approach and the BEM technique, by comparing results from
additional CFD computations and new analytical approaches.
References
Betz, A.: Das Maximum der theoretisch möglichen Ausnützung des Windes durch Windmotoren.
Zeitschrift für das gesamte Turbinenwesen 26, 307–309 (1920)
Betz, A.: Windenergie und ihre Ausnützung durch Windmühlen. Vandenhoeck und Ruprecht,
Göttingen (1926)
Bloor, D.: The Enigma of the Aerofoil. The University of Chicago Press, Chicago and London
(2011)
Blyth, J.: On the application of wind power to the generation and storage of electricity. Paper read
before the Philosophical Society of Glasgow, 2 May 1888 (1888)
Blyth, J.: On the application of wind power to the production of electric currents. Trans. Royal
Scott. Soc. Arts 13, 170–181 (1894)
Glauert, H.: Airplane Propellers. division L. In: Durand WF (ed.) Aerodynamic Theory, vol. IV,
pp. 169–360. Springer: Berlin (1935)
Joukowsky, N.E.: Vortex theory of the screw propeller I–IV. (French translation: ‘Théorie
Tourbillonnaire de l´Hélice Propulsive I–IV’ by W. Margoulis. Éditeurs: Gauthier-Villars et
Cie. Paris, 1929) (1912–1918)
Joukowsky, N.E.: Windmill of the NEJ type. Transactions of the Central Institute for
Aero-Hydrodynamics of Moscow (in Russian). Reprinted in: Joukowsky, N.E. Collected
papers vol. VI, pp. 405–424. Moscow-Leningrad, 1937 (1920)
La Cour, P.: Forsøg med små Møllemodeller. (Experiments with small wind turbine models).
Ingeniøren, no. 10 (1897)
La Cour, P.: Forsøg i Askov med den horizontale Vindmotor. (Experiments in Askov with the
horizontal wind turbine). Ingeniøren, no. 10, p. 89 (1901)
La Cour, P. og Appel, J.: Historisk Fysik. III Kraft, pp. 118–119. Gyldendalske Boghandel;
Nordisk Forlag. Kjøbenhavn og Kristiania (1907)
Okulov, V.L., Sørensen, J.N.: Maximum efficiency of wind turbine rotors using Joukowsky and
Betz approaches. J. Fluid Mech. 649, 497–508 (2010)
Okulov, V.L., Sørensen, J.N., Wood, D.H.: Rotor theories by Professor Joukowsky: Vortex
theories. Prog. Aerosp. Sci. 73, 19–46 (2015)
Okulov, V.L., van Kuik, G.A.M.: The Betz-Joukowsky limit: on the contribution to rotor
aerodynamics by the British, German and Russian scientific schools. Wind Energy 15, 335–
344 (2012)
Sanderse, B., van der Pijl, S.P., Koren, B.: Review of computational fluid dynamics for wind
turbine wake aerodynamics. Wind Energy 14, 799–819 (2011)
Sørensen, J.N.: Aerodynamic aspects of wind energy conversion. Annu. Rev. Fluid Mech. 43,
427–448 (2011)
Sørensen, J.N., van Kuik, G.A.M.: General momentum theory for wind turbines at low tip speed
ratios. Wind Energy 14, 821–839 (2011)
van Kuik, G.A.M., Sørensen, J.N., Okulov, V.L.: Rotor theories by Professor Joukowsky:
Momentum theories. Prog. Aerosp. Sci. 73, 1–18 (2015)
Chapter 2
Basic Definitions
The basic tool for understanding wind turbine aerodynamics is the momentum
theory in which the flow is assumed to be steady, inviscid, incompressible and
axisymmetric. The momentum theory basically consists of control volume integrals
for conservation of mass, axial and angular momentum balances, and energy
conservation
I
qV dA ¼ 0 ð2:1Þ
CV
I I
uqV dA ¼ T pdA ex ð2:2Þ
CV CV
I
ruh qV dA ¼ Q ð2:3Þ
CV
I h i
p=q þ 1=2kVk2 qV dA ¼ P ð2:4Þ
CV
where V ¼ ðu; v; uh Þ is the velocity vector in axial, radial and azimuthal direction,
respectively, q is the density of air, A denotes the outward pointing area vector of
the control volume, p is the pressure, T is the axial force (thrust) acting on the rotor,
Q is the torque, and P is the power extracted from the rotor.
The main dimensionless parameters to characterize the aerodynamic operation of
a wind turbine are the following;
XR
Tip speed ratio: k ¼ ð2:5Þ
U0
T
Thrust coefficient: CT ¼ ð2:6Þ
1=2qAU02
P
Power coefficient: CP ¼ ð2:7Þ
1=2qAU03
where X is the angular velocity of the rotor, A is the rotor area, R is the radius of the
rotor, and U0 is the wind speed.
Essentially a wind turbine is a rotating flow machinery that extracts the kinetic
energy in the wind to useful mechanical power in the rotor and drive train and from
this into electrical power in the generator. The first part of this process, i.e. the
extraction of energy from the wind to the rotor can be modelled using the actuator
disc concept. An actuator disc is an idealized rotor representation, in which a
sudden pressure difference is created over the rotor without having any disconti-
nuity of the velocity. Thus, in front of the disc a high pressure, pþ , appears, whereas
a lower pressure, p , acts behind the rotor disc. The pressure jumps over the rotor
disc, ðpþ p Þ, then corresponds to the local thrust force acting over the rotor,
DT ¼ ðpþ p Þ DA, where DA ¼ 2prDr corresponds to the local area of an
annular segment of the rotor. The extracted power can then be determined by
multiplying the thrust by the local velocity in the rotor plane. The above-presented
equations form the background for the analysis presented in the rest of the thesis.
Chapter 3
One-Dimensional Axial Momentum
Theory
We first revisit the simple axial momentum theory as it originated from Rankine
(1865), W. Froude (1878) and R.E. Froude (1889). Consider an axial flow of speed
U0 past an actuator disc of area A with constant axial load (thrust) T. Let uR denote
the axial velocity in the rotor plane, let u1 be the axial velocity in the ultimate wake
where the air has regained its undisturbed pressure value, p1 ¼ p0 , and let q denote
the density of air. Consider a one-dimensional model for the stream tube that
encloses the rotor disc (see Fig. 3.1) and denote by A0 and A1 the cross-sectional
area of the wake far upstream and far downstream of the rotor, respectively. The
equation of continuity, Eq. (2.1), requires that the rate of mass flow, m, _ is constant
in each cross section. Thus,
Z
m_ ¼ qudA ¼qU0 A0 ¼ quR A ¼ qu1 A1 : ð3:1Þ
Axial momentum balance, Eq. (2.2), for the considered stream tube results in the
following equation for the thrust:
_ 0 u1 Þ ¼ quR AðU0 u1 Þ:
T ¼ mðU ð3:2Þ
Here, we have exploited the fact that the pressure in the wake is equal to the
upstream pressure, p1 ¼ p0 and that the net action of the lateral pressure acting on
the stream tube is zero. The latter can be shown by using a cylindrical control
volume with radius going to infinity (this will be shown later). Applying the
Bernoulli’s equation in front of and behind the rotor, we find that the total pressure
head of the air in the slipstream has been decreased by
U0 uR u1
3.1 Basics of Axial Momentum Theory 11
The pressure drop takes place across the rotor and represents the thrust, T ¼ ADp.
Combining Eqs. (3.2) and (3.3) shows that
uR ¼ 1=2ðu1 þ U0 Þ: ð3:4Þ
U 0 uR
a¼ ; ð3:5Þ
U0
we get that uR ¼ ð1 aÞU0 and u1 ¼ ð1 2aÞU0 . From Eq. (2.2), we get the
following expressions for thrust and power extraction
Differentiating the power coefficient with respect to the axial interference factor, the
maximum obtainable power is obtained as
16 1
CP max ¼ ¼ 0:593 for a¼ : ð3:9Þ
27 3
This result is usually referred to as the Betz limit or the ‘Betz–Joukowsky limit’, as
recently proposed by Okulov and van Kuik (2012) and states the upper maximum
for power extraction: not more than 59.3 % of the kinetic energy contained in a
stream tube having the same cross section as the disc area can be converted to
useful work by the disc. However, it does not include the losses due to rotation of
the wake, and therefore, it represents a conservative upper maximum.
To verify this assumption, we here analyse the implications resulting from the
hypothesis that the axial velocity is constant along the rotor plane, that is u ¼ uðxÞ.
Assuming a constant loading on the rotor disc, vortices are shed downstream only
along the stream tube enclosing the rotor edge. Thus, upstream the rotor and in the
slipstream behind the rotor, the flow is irrotational, and from the definition of
azimuthal vorticity, with r denoting the radial coordinate and v the radial velocity,
we get
@v @u
xh ¼ ¼ 0; ð3:10Þ
@x @r
implying that
@v @u
¼ : ð3:11Þ
@x @r
@ðruÞ @ðrvÞ
þ ¼ 0; ð3:12Þ
@x @r
implying that
@u 1 @ðrvÞ
¼ ¼ C; ð3:13Þ
@x r @r
where C is a constant, since the first expression only depends on x and the second
only depends on r: Integrating from the rotor to a neighbouring point ðx; yÞ
upstream or in the slipstream of the rotor shows that
This expression shows that one-dimensional flow only is possible if the axial
velocity varies linearly as a function of x and that the radial velocity increases
linearly as a function of radial coordinate in the rotor plane. It has been argued, e.g.,
by de Vries (1979, Appendix C, page 6) and Xiros and Xiros (2007), that a constant
loading results in a uniform axial velocity in the rotor plane. The argument is as
follows. Upstream of the rotor there is an increasing expansion, implying that
@v=@x [ 0. Downstream of the rotor, the expansion starts to diminish, implying
that @v=@x\0. Hence, in the rotor plane, it is therefore likely that @v=@x ¼ 0,
which from Eq. (3.11) implies that @u=@r ¼ 0 ) u ¼ uðxÞ. This further implies
that u is constant in the rotor plane. However, from numerical analyses using the
axisymmetric generalized actuator disc Navier–Stokes code developed by
Sørensen and Myken (1992), Sørensen and Kock (1995) (see Appendix A), this
3.2 Assessment of Basic Assumptions of 1D Momentum Theory 13
Fig. 3.2 Distributions of different quantities in the rotor plane for different constant loadings. Left
distributions of gradients of velocities with red line denoting @v=@x and dashed black line @u=@r;
Right radial velocity (Sørensen and Mikkelsen 2012)
argument has been shown not to be correct by Sørensen and Mikkelsen (2001,
2012). This is demonstrated in Fig. 3.2a, which shows computed distributions of
du=dr and dv=dx from numerical actuator disc computations assuming a constant
loading. Both distributions are required to be zero if the above argument holds.
From the figure, it is seen that the numerical results support the basic relationship
that two terms are identical. However, they are only zero in the inner part of the
actuator disc, whereas they, depending on the actual value of the thrust coefficient,
CT , attain rather large values when approaching the edge of the actuator disc. This
is supported by Fig. 3.2b that shows the dimensionless radial velocity component in
the rotor plane. If @v=@x ¼ 0, this velocity component should vary linearly as a
function of radius, as illustrated in Eq. (3.14). However, from Fig. 3.2b, it is clearly
seen that this is not the case. In Fig. 3.3a and b, we depict the associated distri-
butions of axial velocity and axial interference factor, respectively. These distri-
butions seem only to be constant for small thrust coefficients (CT \0:2), whereas
they generally are subject to a large increase near the edge of the actuator disc.
From the computations, it is clearly seen that the statement that @v=@x ¼ 0 does
not hold in the rotor plane. As a consequence, we may conclude that a pure
one-dimensional flow cannot take place, and hence, in general, uR ¼ uR ðx; rÞ. This
implies furthermore that the momentum equation, Eq. (3.2), has to be replaced by
the general formula
Z
T¼ quR ðu1 U0 ÞdA; ð3:15Þ
AD
14 3 One-Dimensional Axial Momentum Theory
Fig. 3.3 Axial velocity distributions in the rotor plane for different constant loadings. Left
Dimensionless axial velocity; Right axial interference factor (Sørensen and Mikkelsen 2012)
This shows that for a rotor with constant loading, only the area-averaged axial
velocity is given as the arithmetic mean of the free-stream velocity and the slip-
stream velocity. In recent paper by van Kuik and Lignarolo (2015), it was shown
that the absolute velocity is constant along the rotor plane.
A thorough analysis of the validity of using the actuator disc principle in con-
nection with one-dimensional momentum theory has recently been given by van
Kuik et al. (2014). In this work, they investigated the higher-order effect of adding
thickness to the actuator disc and found that conservative forces that would
otherwise appear on the edge of the disc vanish for vanishing disc thickness and
therefore do not play any role in the infinitely thin actuator disc method.
The next question to be addressed is to what extent the axial momentum theory may
be applied locally to a rotor with a non-constant loading distributed over the pro-
peller disc. Applying the momentum equation to individual stream surfaces of the
propeller (see Fig. 3.4), we get the following expression for the local thrust
3.3 Assessment of Axial Momentum Theory on Differential Form 15
where DA is the area of the rotor disc on which DT acts and DX denotes the axial
component of the force exerted by the pressure on the annular control volume,
I
DX ¼ pdA ex ; ð3:18Þ
cv
where dA denotes an area element of the stream surface oriented in the outward
pointing normal direction and ex is the unit vector in the axial direction.
It should be noted that in a viscous theory also, the influence of friction forces
has to be taken into account. In particular, in the far wake behind the rotor,
molecular and turbulent mixing may play an important role that is not taken into
account in the inviscid model.
From Eq. (3.3), the local thrust may also be expressed as
DX
uR ¼ 1=2ðU0 þ u1 Þ ; ð3:20Þ
qAðU0 u1 Þ
This expression shows that there exists a direct relation between the error com-
mitted by using Eq. (3.4) directly and the appearance of the lateral force component
due to the pressure. In most work on wind turbine aerodynamics, the influence of
the lateral force is neglected and Eq. (3.4) is utilized without further discussion.
16 3 One-Dimensional Axial Momentum Theory
In the textbook of Glauert (1935), it is stated that the validity of ignoring the term
DX in Eq. (3.17) has not been established and its adoption may imply the neglect of
the mutual interference between the various annular elements. However, Glauert
also believed that the influence of ignoring the term in general is extremely small.
The issue has been discussed by, e.g., Thoma (1925), Goorjian (1972) and Sørensen
and Mikkelsen (2001, 2012). In the work by Sørensen and Mikkelsen (2001), the
error introduced by neglecting the lateral forces, DX, was quantified by comparing
results from the momentum theory with numerical results from the axisymmetric
generalized actuator disc/Navier–Stokes code. It is here appropriate to introduce the
following quantities:
uR DX
e1 ¼ 1 ; e2 ¼ : ð3:22Þ
1=2ðU0 þ u1 Þ DT
These quantities can be computed directly from the Navier–Stokes results by evalu-
ating velocity distributions in the rotor plane and in the wake, and by integrating the
pressure along annular control volumes. In Fig. 3.5, computed e1 and e2 distributions
are plotted as a function of radial distance at constant loadings CT = 0.2, 0.4 and 0.6,
respectively. Far from the edge of the actuator disc, it is found that e1 and e2 are close to
zero, with errors less than 1 % over more than 90 % of the rotor surface. However,
errors up to about 15 % appear near the edge of the disc. In Fig. 3.6, the difference
between the computed axial velocity and the corresponding axial velocity obtained
from the momentum theory is plotted along the rotor plane. We here observe that for
CT values up to 0.8, the difference over most of the rotor plane is less than 1 %. Near
the edge of the disc, however, differences up to about 8 % exist, which gives an
indication of the order of magnitude of the local error committed when ignoring the
impact of the lateral pressure on the differential form of the axial momentum
equation. It should be noted, however, that the inclusion of a tip correction in a realistic
rotor calculation will reduce the error near the edge of the disc.
3.4 One-Dimensional Momentum Theory Applied … 17
where q_ ¼ AuR is the volume flow through the rotor and P is the power produced
by the rotor. Rearranging this equation, the power can be written as follows: