• Journal of the Korean Society for Aeronautical & Space Sciences
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• v.39 no.3
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• pp.201-209
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• 2011

An unsteady RANS analysis study of the 3-D flow around the NREL Phase VI horizontal axis wind turbine(HAWT) was performed using sliding mesh approach. Two different analysis models such as rotor-only and rotor with tower/nacelle were constructed to investigate the blade/tower interaction. Analysis results for the rotor with tower/nacelle were compared with the corresponding NREL's experimental data which produced fairly good validation of the present CFD model. Comparison of flows around those two models also clearly showed the blade/tower interaction even it was small for upwind configuration. Other visualization results and integrated aerodynamic loads including torque of the blade demonstrated the effective unsteady flow simulation capability of the present CFD model.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers B
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• v.32 no.7
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• pp.549-557
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• 2008

Despite of the laminar-turbulent transition region co-exist with fully turbulence region around the leading edge of an airfoil, still lots of researchers apply to fully turbulence models to predict aerodynamic characteristics. It is well known that fully turbulent model such as standard k-model couldn't predict the complex stall and the separation behavior on an airfoil accurately, it usually leads to over prediction of the aerodynamic characteristics such as lift and drag forces. So, we apply correlation based transition model to predict aerodynamic performance of the NREL (National Renewable Energy Laboratory) Phase IV wind turbine. And also, compare the computed results from transition model with experimental measurement and fully turbulence results. Results are presented for a range of wind speed, for a NREL Phase IV wind turbine rotor. Low speed shaft torque, power, root bending moment, aerodynamic coefficients of 2D airfoil and several flow field figures results included in this study. As a result, the low speed shaft torque predicted by transitional turbulence model is very good agree with the experimental measurement in whole operating conditions but fully turbulent model(${\kappa}-\;{\varepsilon}$) over predict the shaft torque after 7m/s. Root bending moment is also good agreement between the prediction and experiments for most of the operating conditions, especially with the transition model.

• Journal of computational fluids engineering
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• v.13 no.2
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• pp.55-61
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• 2008

The Reynolds-Averaged Navier-Stokes(RANS) analysis of the 3-D steady flow around the NREL Phase VI horizontal axis wind turbine(HAWT) rotor was performed. The CFD analysis results were compared with experimental data at several different wind speeds. The present CFD model shows good agreements with the experiments both at low wind speed which formed well-attache flow mostly on the upper surface of the blade, and at high wind speed which blade surface flow completely separated. However, some discrepancy occurs at the relatively high wind speeds where mixed attached and separated flow formed on the suction surface of the blade. It seems that the discrepancy is related to the onset of stall phenomena and consequently separation prediction capability of the current turbulence model. It is also found that strong span-wise flow occurs in stalled area due to the centrifugal force generated by rotation of the turbine rotor and it prevents abrupt reduction of normal force for higher wind speed than the designed value.