Aerodynamic Analysis of Trailing Edge Enlarged Wind Turbine Airfoils

The aerodynamic performance of blunt trailing edge airfoils generated from the DU- 91-W2-250, DU-97-W-300 and DU-96-W-350 airfoils by enlarging the thickness of trailing edge symmetrically from the location of maximum thickness to chord to the trailing edge were analyzed by using CFD and RFOIL methods at a chord Reynolds number of 3 × 106.

The goal of this study is to analyze the aerodynamic performance of blunt trailing edge airfoils with different thicknesses of trailing edge and maximum thicknesses to chord. The steady results calculated by the fully turbulent k-ω SST, transitional k-ω SST model and RFOIL all show that with the increase of thickness of trailing edge, the linear region of lift is extended and the maximum lift also increases, the increase rate and amount of lift become limited gradually at low angles of attack, while the drag increases dramatically.

For thicker airfoils with larger maximum thickness to chord length, the increment of lift is larger than that of relatively thinner airfoils when the thickness of blunt trailing edge is increased from 5% to 10% chord length. But too large lift can cause abrupt stall which is profitless for power output.

The transient characteristics of blunt trailing edge airfoils are caused by blunt body vortices at low angles of attack, and by the combined effect of separation and blunt body vortices at large angles of attack. With the increase of thickness of blunt trailing edge, the vibration amplitudes of lift and drag curves increase.

The transient calculations over-predict the lift at large angles of attack and drag at all angles of attack than the steady calculations which is likely to be caused by the artificial restriction of the flow in two dimensions.