The Effects of a Seagull Airfoil on the Aerodynamic Performance of a Small Wind Turbine

Abstract

Birds’ flight characteristics such as gliding and dynamic soaring have inspired various optimizations and designs of wind turbines. The implementation of biological wing geometries such as the airfoil profile of seabirds has improved wind turbine performance. However, the field can still benefit from further investigation into the aerodynamic characteristics of an inspired design. Therefore, this study evaluated the effect of a seagull airfoil design on the aerodynamic performance of the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) Phase VI wind turbine. By replacing its S809 airfoil with the laser-scanned profile of the seagull airfoil, the aerodynamic behavior at key locations of the NREL Phase VI wind turbine blade was numerically simulated in a three-dimensional environment using the Ansys Fluent 2022 R1 computational fluid dynamics (CFD) code. The results were validated against the experimental data, and analysis of the torque outputs, pressure distributions, and velocity profiles that were generated by both the baseline and modified models demonstrated the ability of the seagull airfoil profile to modify regions of minimum and maximum local velocities to achieve highly favorable pressure differentials, significantly increasing the torque output of the NREL Phase VI wind turbine by 350, 539, 823, and 577 Nm at 10, 15, 20, and 25 m/s inlet velocities, respectively.

Keywords

• wind turbine performance
• airfoil design
• biological inspiration
• wind turbine simulation