Active flap control on an aeroelastic wind turbine airfoil in gust conditions using both a CFD and an engineering model

In the past year, smart rotor technology has been studied significantly as solution to the ever growing turbines. Aeroservoelastic tools are used to asses and predict the behavior of rotors using trailing edge devices like flaps. In this paper an unsteady aerodynamic model (Beddoes-Leishman type) and an CFD model (URANS) are used to analyze the aeroservoelastic response of a 2D three degree of freedom rigid body wind turbine airfoil with a deforming trailing edge flap encountering deterministic gusts. Both uncontrolled and controlled simulations are used to asses the differences between the two models for 2D aerservoelastic simulations. Results show an increase in the difference between models for the y component if the deforming trailing edge flap is used as control device. Observed flap deflections are significantly larger in the URANS model in certain cases, while the same controller is used. The pitch angle and moment shows large differences in the uncontrolled case, which become smaller, but remain significant when the controller is applied. Both models show similar reductions in vertical displacement, with a penalty of a significant increase in pitch angle deflections.