CFD study of active flow control around a wind turbine profile using synthetic jet

Abstract

In this study, numerical simulations are performed to investigate the effect of the position and jet angle of the synthetic jet on the aerodynamic characteristics of a wind turbine blade profile. The study is applied to the NREL S809 profile with a 1m chord, set at an angle of attack of 15.2° in a flow at a Reynolds number Re=106. The synthetic jet is placed on the extrados of the profile and modeled by a sinusoidal function. The flow around the blade profile is simulated by solving Navier–Stokes equations using the commercial software ANSYS Fluent based on the finite volume method. Turbulence is simulated using the two-equation SST model. The results show that the considered jet parameters have a strong effect on the aerodynamic characteristics of the profile. Applying an optimal combination of synthetic jet parameters significantly improves the aerodynamic performance of the profile.

Keywords

• flow control
• synthetic jet
• s809 airfoil
• wind turbine
• cfd