Experimental and Numerical Investigation of the Effect of Rotor Blockage on Wake Expansion

A detailed quantitative description of the aerodynamics of a horizontal axis wind turbine (HAWT) is difficult due to complexity of the flow field. Several methods from experimental to analytical are used to investigate the aerodynamics of a HAWT. In the present study, a wind tunnel experiment and computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulations are used to explore the expansion of the wake. 2D actuator disc (AD) simulations are compared with the wind tunnel experiments. To understand the aerodynamic behavior of a model wind turbine blade, a detail flow field measurements in chordwise-spanwise directions and in the wake have been done. The measurements are performed on a 2 bladed rotor by means of Stereo Particle Image Velocimetry (Stereo PIV) in an open jet wind tunnel. In this paper, the velocity measurements performed in the wake region of the blade is presented. Actuator disc simulations are performed by applying a constant pressure jump on a permeable disc of zero thickness. Actuator disc simulations are carried out by using FLUENT 6.3.26 with the incompressible version of the Reynolds Averaged Navier-Stokes (RANS) equations. By validating the simulations with the experimental results, one may conclude that the unsteady CFD modeling works correctly and the wake expansion of the prescribed model is affected by the geometry of the Open Jet Facility (OJF)