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Article
A Prescribed-Wake Vortex Lattice Method for Preliminary Design of Co-Axial, Dual-Rotor Wind Turbines
Journal of Solar Energy Engineering
  • Aaron Rosenberg, Iowa State University
  • Anupam Sharma, Iowa State University
Document Type
Article
Publication Version
Accepted Manuscript
Publication Date
12-1-2016
DOI
10.1115/1.4034350
Abstract

This paper extends the prescribed-wake vortex lattice method (VLM) to perform aerodynamic analysis of dual-rotor wind turbines (DRWTs). A DRWT turbine consists of a large, primary rotor placed co-axially behind a smaller, secondary rotor. The additional vortex system introduced by the secondary rotor of a DRWT is modeled while taking into account the singularities that can occur when the trailing vortices from the secondary (upstream) rotor interact with the bound vortices of the main (downstream) rotor. Pseudo-steady assumption is invoked, and averaging over multiple relative rotor positions is performed to account for the primary and secondary rotors operating at different rotational velocities. The VLM solver is first validated against experiments and blade element momentum theory results for a conventional, single-rotor turbine. The solver is then verified for two DRWT designs against results from two computational fluid dynamics (CFD) methods: (1) Reynolds-averaged Navier–Stokes CFD with an actuator disk representation of the turbine rotors and (2) large-eddy simulations with an actuator line model. Radial distributions of sectional torque force and angle of attack show reasonable agreement between the three methods. Results of parametric sweeps performed using VLM agree qualitatively with the Reynolds-averaged Navier–Stokes (RANS) CFD results demonstrating that the proposed VLM can be used to guide preliminary design of DRWTs.

Comments

This is a manuscript of an article published as Rosenberg, Aaron, and Anupam Sharma. "A prescribed-wake vortex lattice method for preliminary design of co-axial, dual-rotor wind turbines." Journal of Solar Energy Engineering 138, no. 6 (2016): 061002. DOI: 10.1115/1.4034350. Posted with permission.

Creative Commons License
Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International
Copyright Owner
ASME
Language
en
File Format
application/pdf
Citation Information
Aaron Rosenberg and Anupam Sharma. "A Prescribed-Wake Vortex Lattice Method for Preliminary Design of Co-Axial, Dual-Rotor Wind Turbines" Journal of Solar Energy Engineering Vol. 138 Iss. 6 (2016) p. 061002
Available at: http://works.bepress.com/anupam_sharma/45/