Analysis of the effect of freestream turbulence on dynamic stall of wind turbine blades

The aerodynamics of a wind turbine blade at various fixed and dynamically changing angles of attack for laminar and turbulent freestream is investigated by large-eddy simulations. The effects of freestream turbulence on the aerodynamic coefficients are analyzed for dynamic stall conditions being generated by prescribing gusts, i.e., periodically changing incoming velocity fields, onto a ClarkY airfoil at a chord based Reynolds number of Re = 150, 000. A synthetic turbulence generation (STG) method is extended and applied to produce the turbulent gusts in a time varying mean flow with predefined turbulence statistics, such as mean velocity, Reynolds stress tensor components, and velocity spectra. The length scales in the turbulent freestream are smaller than the blade chord length. The reduced frequency of the incoming laminar and turbulent gusts is k(red )= 0.2 based on the freestream velocity, chord length, and gust frequency. Dynamic stall is analyzed for an angle of attack ranging from 10 degrees to 25 degrees. It is shown how much the freestream turbulence level delays stall and increases lift at high angle of attack. The effect of the turbulence is most evident on the aerodynamic forces during the phase of decreasing angle of attack of the dynamic stall process, in which the reattachment of the boundary layer is enhanced by the freestream turbulence. The negative damping from the moment coefficient is also significantly reduced due to the incoming turbulence. The results show that the freestream turbulence in a turbulent flow at a turbulence level of 5% improves the aerodynamic performance of the wind turbine blade.