A method for inverse design of horizontal axis wind turbines (HAWTs) is presented in this paper. The direct solver for aerodynamic analysis solves the Reynolds-averaged Navier–Stokes (RANS) equations, where the effect of the turbine rotor is modeled as momentum sources using the actuator disk model (ADM); this approach is referred to as RANS/ADM. The inverse problem is posed as follows: for a given selection of airfoils, the objective is to find the blade geometry (described as blade twist and chord distributions) which realizes the desired turbine aerodynamic performance at the design point; the desired performance is prescribed as angle of attack (α) and axial induction factor (a) distributions along the blade. An iterative approach is used. An initial estimate of blade geometry is used with the direct solver (RANS/ADM) to obtain α and a. The differences between the calculated and desired values of α and a are computed and a new estimate for the blade geometry (chord and twist) is obtained via nonlinear least squares regression using the trust-region-reflective (TRF) method. This procedure is continued until the difference between the calculated and the desired values is within acceptable tolerance. The method is demonstrated for conventional, single-rotor HAWTs and then extended to multirotor, specifically dual-rotor wind turbines (DRWT). The TRF method is also compared with the multidimensional Newton iteration method and found to provide better convergence when constraints are imposed in blade design, although faster convergence is obtained with the Newton method for unconstrained optimization.
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April 2018
Research-Article
Inverse Design of Single- and Multi-Rotor Horizontal Axis Wind Turbine Blades Using Computational Fluid Dynamics
Anupam Sharma
Anupam Sharma
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Behnam Moghadassian
Anupam Sharma
Contributed by the Solar Energy Division of ASME for publication in the JOURNAL OF SOLAR ENERGY ENGINEERING: INCLUDING WIND ENERGY AND BUILDING ENERGY CONSERVATION. Manuscript received March 16, 2017; final manuscript received October 27, 2017; published online January 22, 2018. Assoc. Editor: Yves Gagnon.
J. Sol. Energy Eng. Apr 2018, 140(2): 021003 (11 pages)
Published Online: January 22, 2018
Article history
Received:
March 16, 2017
Revised:
October 27, 2017
Citation
Moghadassian, B., and Sharma, A. (January 22, 2018). "Inverse Design of Single- and Multi-Rotor Horizontal Axis Wind Turbine Blades Using Computational Fluid Dynamics." ASME. J. Sol. Energy Eng. April 2018; 140(2): 021003. https://doi.org/10.1115/1.4038811
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