Numerical Simulation of Influence with Surface contamination on Aerodynamic Performance of Dedicated Wind Turbine Airfoil

A Numerical simulation on the influence of airfoil surface contamination on the aerodynamic performance of wind turbines was performed. It chose the dedicated wind turbine airfoil as the research object. The k-omega Shear Stress Transmission (SST) turbulence model was selected for CFD calculation. The roughness height which arranged evenly on the airfoil was changed from 0.03mm to 2.0mm to obtain the sensitive roughness. The airfoil was divided into 18 sections for analyzing the effect on the lift & the drag coefficient, due to various locations of sensitive roughness. By comparing the result computed by XFOIL and CFD calculation, it can be known this airfoil's sensitive locations in suction surface and pressure surface. The sensitive locations in suction surface were 53% and 92% from the chord line towards the leading edge, while 44% and 88% in pressure surface. The sensitive roughness in sensitive locations delayed the location of the transition point.