Viscous–inviscid method for the simulation of turbulent unsteady wind turbine airfoil flow

Abstract A Viscous–inviscid interaction method is presented that allows for the simulation of unsteady airfoil flow in the context of wind turbine applications. The method couples a 2-D external unsteady potential flow to a 2-D unsteady turbulent boundary layer. The separation point on the airfoil leeward side is determined in a self-consistent way from the boundary-layer equations, and the separated flow region is modelled independently. Wake shape and motion are also determined in a self-consistent way, while an unsteady Kutta condition is implemented. The method is able to deal with attached flow and light stall situations characterised by unsteady turbulent boundary-layer separation size up to 50% of the airfoil chord length. The results of the validation campaign show that the method could be used for industrial design purposes because of its numerical robustness, reasonable accuracy, and limited computational time demands.

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