Comparison of applied loads on horizontal axis wind turbine blades using an open-source software Qblade and CFD solver ANSYS-FLUENT

As the wind energy sector rapidly advances, there is an increasing demand to improve energy efficiency and prolong the lifespan of wind turbines. Among the essential and costly components in the wind energy system, wind turbine blades (WTB) play a crucial role. Therefore, understanding the forces acting on WTBs holds significant importance. In this paper, WTB is modeled using NACA 4412 airfoil with 77.5 rotor radius in SolidWorks and Qblade. The geometry from SolidWorks is used to perform computational fluid dynamics (CFD) based on the Reynolds Averaged Navier-Stokes (RANS) approach in ANSYS-FLUENT software. Furthermore, the paper also includes the developed MATLAB code based on the Blade Element Momentum (BEM) method to validate the loads acting on the blade with Qblade and CFD results. Our thorough simulations and analyses reveal that the normal forces obtained from MATLAB and Qblade are in good agreement with CFD results while the tangential forces computed from MATLAB and Qblade defer from the CFD results.