An impulse-based derivation of the Kutta–Joukowsky equation for wind turbine thrust

Abstract

Using the concept of impulse in control volume analysis, we derive general expressions for wind turbine thrust in a constant, spatially uniform wind. The absence of pressure in the impulse equations allows for their application in the near wake, where the flow is assumed to be steady in the frame of reference rotating with the blades. The assumption of circumferential uniformity in the near wake – as applies when the number of blades or the tip speed ratio tends to infinity – is needed to reduce these general expressions to the Kutta–Joukowsky (KJ) equation for blade-element thrust. The present derivation improves upon the classical derivation based on the Bernoulli equation by allowing the flow to be rotational in the near wake. The present derivation also yields intermediate expressions for thrust that are valid for a finite number of blades and trailing vortex sheets of finite thickness. For the circumferentially uniform case, our analysis suggests that the magnitudes of the radial velocity and the axial induction factor must be equal somewhere on the plane containing the rotor, and we cite previous studies that show this to occur near the rotor tip across a wide range of thrust coefficients. The derivation reveals one further complication; when deriving the KJ equations using annular control volumes, the existence of vorticity on the lateral control surfaces may cause the local blade loading to differ from the KJ equation, but the magnitude of these deviations is not explored. This complication is not visible to the classical derivation due to its neglect of vorticity.