Validation of a three-dimensional viscous-inviscid interactive solver for wind turbine rotors

MIRAS is a newly developed computational model that predicts the aerodynamic behavior of wind turbine blades and wakes subject to unsteady motions and viscous effects. The model is based on a three-dimensional panel method using a surface distribution of quadrilateral singularities with a Neumann no penetration condition.

Viscous effects inside the boundary layer are taken into account through the coupling with the quasi-3D integral boundary layer solver Q3UIC. A free-wake model is employed to simulate the vorticity released by the blades in the wake. In this paper the new code is validated against measurements and/or CFD simulations for five wind turbine rotors, including three experimental model rotors [20-22], the 2.5 MW NM80 machine [23] and the NREL 5 MW virtual rotor [24].

Such a broad set of operational conditions and rotor sizes constitutes a very challenging validation matrix, with Reynolds numbers ranging from 5.0·104 to 1.2·107.