Single-Objective Optimal Design of a High-Performance Wind Turbine Airfoil Family

Abstract

The development of high-performance wind turbine blade airfoil families is an important research topic in wind power generation technology. Using the NACA63 series airfoil as the initial airfoil, the XFOIL software based on the panel method is used to calculate the airfoil’s lift-drag coefficient. Secondly, an improved Hicks-Henne shape function is employed to define the airfoil’s geometry. Finally, a single objective optimization model is established based on three optimization algorithms (genetic algorithm, particle swarm optimization algorithm, and particle swarm optimization and genetic algorithm), which takes the control coefficient of shape function as a variable, the maximum of lift coefficient and lift-drag ratio as the goal, and satisfies the geometric and aerodynamic constraints. Different angles of attack, Reynolds numbers and weight coefficients are considered, there are seven groups high-performance airfoil families obtained (ZDGN-ASG, ZDGN-ASP, ZDGN-ASPG, ZDGN-ASR1, ZDGN-ASR5, ZDGN-ASQ3, ZDGN-ASQ8). The lift coefficients and lift-to-drag ratios are higher than those of the initial airfoil under the same operating conditions, and have been applied to the actual 1.2MW wind turbine blades. The results show that the output power and wind energy utilization coefficient of the new blades are significantly improved, further proving that the new airfoil family has superior aerodynamic performance.

Keywords

• Wind turbine
• airfoil family
• high performance
• single objective
• optimal design
• aerodynamic performance