Design of the Wind Turbine Blade Airfoil Based on SOM

An optimization system for wind turbine blade based on Self-Organizing Map(SOM) was deve￣loped.It is important for airfoil design in blade tip section to improve the lift-to-drag curve and delay the occurrence of stall phenomenon.With the aerodynamic characteristics calculated by N-S equation and the relevance built between the geometry and aerodynamic characteristics,an expert database was built by SOM method,which can automatically give the optimization direction with the design target according to the Certainty Factor inference method.Based on reference geometry and optimize direction mentioned above,the network gives a large number of optimized geometry.As a test sample,the airfoil S828 was improved through optimization direction and an optimized airfoil was developed.Furthermore,Blade-Element Momentum(BEM) theory is introduced to evaluate the output power performance of the optimized blade.The present method is proven to be useful for improving the performance of wind turbine blades.