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46th Symposium of Applied Aerodynamics PolytechOrlans, 28-30 March 2011

METHOD FOR EXTRACTING AIRFOIL DATA OF ROTATING BLADES 46th APPLIED AERODYNAMICS SYMPOSIUM ORLANS, FRANCE, 28-30 MARCH 2011 Ivan Dobrev (1), Fawaz Massouh (2)
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Arts et Mtiers-Paristech, 151, bd LHpital, Paris 75013, France, Email: ivan.dobrev@ensam.eu Arts et Mtiers-Paristech, 151, bd LHpital, Paris 75013, France, Email:fawaz.massouh@ensam.eu

This paper proposes a method to extract the aerodynamic lift coefficients of the rotating wind turbine blade. The method is based on the analysis of the velocity field around the blade sections. This velocity field, obtained by means of PIV exploration, is used to calculate the blade section circulation and inflow velocity. Based on KuttaJoukowsky theorem, it is possible to calculate the lift coefficient of the blade section. To establish the relationship between the lift coefficient and the angle of attack, the rotor is tested for different rotational speeds while keeping the upstream flow velocity constant. Thus, the aerodynamic properties of the blade airfoils are obtained, taking into account the rotational effects. The results are useful database for numerical simulations and validations.

INTRODUCTION Several aerodynamic theories for the analysis of flow through rotors or propellers need the airfoil aerodynamic characteristics. These characteristics are used to calculate the forces applied by the wind on blade sections, depending of rotor inflow. Usually, the lift and drag coefficients, as functions of angle of attack, are obtained by the test of the airfoil in a wind tunnel. However, it is known that the blade rotation can have a significant effect on the blade section aerodynamic coefficients. Unlike the profile of a fixed wing, in the case of the rotating blade, the boundary layer is subjected to centrifugal and Coriolis forces. . Consequently, flow separation appears for a greater angle of attack and becomes less abrupt, especially for the root blade sections, see [1]. Thus, to improve the accuracy of calculation, it is essential to use the aerodynamic characteristics of rotating airfoil, sometimes called rotating polar. There are different theories to calculate the rotating polar based on the correction of the 2D polar of the profile, see [2]. Unfortunately, the results obtained using these theories are not always satisfactory and do not achieve the desired accuracy. Consequently, the experimental way remains to be exploited to obtain these characteristics. Currently, the experimental method is based on measuring the static pressure on several sections along the blade and measuring the dynamic pressure and velocity direction

upstream of each of these sections. This method can be applied to rotors equipped with blades, which has sufficient space to carry a pressure sensor, connecting lines and also numerous pressure taps. Moreover, the task becomes even more difficult, since the reference velocity should be measured sufficiently upstream of the profile, where the flow is not perturbed by the blade section. In view of these difficulties to measure the pressures on a rotating blade and to obtain the wind direction upstream of the profile, this method seems very costly and thus rotating polar exists only for a few profiles; see [3], [4], [5] and [6]. The development of non-intrusive techniques, such as LDA and PIV, enables to measure the velocity field around a rotating blade. Meanwhile the review of literature shows that only few studies took advantage of such techniques to investigate flow through a wind turbine rotor. In fact, most researchers work essentially about the exploration of wind turbine wake by PIV, for example in [7], [8], [9] and [10]. Only two researcher teams have worked on the exploration of flow around the rotating blade section. In the first study, presented in [8], the authors studied the vortex wake behind the rotor and the velocity field around the blade sections. The blade bound circulation is presented and angle of attack is also measured directly from the obtained vector field. Without carrying out calculation, the

authors suggest using Kutta-Joukowsky theorem to obtain the airfoil lift coefficients. The other work devoted to study velocity field around a wind turbine blade is that of Maeda et al [4]. In this work the authors present the distribution of circulation along the blade based on the velocities obtained by means of LDA. The pressure distribution is also measured for 5 different sections of the blade. The aerodynamic characteristics of the airfoils are determined from pressure measurements. The study presented here is a continuity of studies of the wake vortex downstream of wind turbine rotors [9] and [10]. The objective is to develop a method for calculating aerodynamic coefficients of the rotating airfoil. The approach is based on the analysis of the velocity fields obtained by PIV measurements around the blade sections of a rotating blade. Indeed the aerodynamic force applied to the profile is obtained on the basis of the Kutta-Joukowsky theorem and from the circulation around the profile.

and inflow velocity along the blade is compared with the mechanical power measured directly on the shaft of the turbine. 1. EXPERIMENTAL STUDY 1.1. Test bench The experimental study is carried out on a wind turbine installed in the wind tunnel of Arts et Mtiers - ParisTech, Fig.1. The tunnel nozzle accelerates the wind from settling chamber to test section up to 40 m/s. The nozzle has contraction ratio of 12.5, which ensure a uniform velocity profile and turbulence less than 0.25%. The tested wind turbine has a three-blade rotor with a diameter of 500 mm. The chord is 68 mm at the blade root and 48 mm at the tip. The blades are not twisted and the pitch angle is 10 .

Figure 2. Plane of exploration

Figure 1. Test Bench

During the tests, the wind turbine rotational speed varies from 1200 rpm to 1800 rpm and the upstream flow velocity is constant: 9.3 m/s. The Reynolds number calculated for the blade chord located at 0.7R by means of relative velocities obtained during the tests varies between 90,000 and 130,000. The rotor is mounted on a 600mm long shaft which is coupled with a DC generator. The rotor load is controlled with a rheostat connected to the generator. The coupling between the rotor shaft and the generator is made via a contactless torque transducer (HBM T20WN), which enables to measure the torque and delivers 360 pulses per revolution. A fiber optic sensor (Keyence FS20V), that detects a rotating target on the shaft, is used to locate the passage of the blade considered to be the reference. Thus, the counting the number of square signals delivered by the torque meter after the passage of the reference signal, permits to obtain the rotor's

In this study, the reference velocity used to calculate the lift coefficients is determined from the measured velocity field, upstream of the blade section, and from the peripheral component of velocity due to rotation of the blade. A correction is applied in order to account for the local disturbance created by the studied blade section. The calculation is carried out for different operating points of the wind turbine which enables to determine the variation of lift coefficient as a function of the angle of attack. Finally to validate the method, the power obtained by means of measured circulation

angular position with an accuracy of 1 The . acquisition of data from the sensors is carried out by data acquisition card, which emits a TTL signal for triggering the PIV measurements at a desired rotor angular position.

Taking into account that the frequency of the camera is 7 Hz, the image is taken once every four revolutions. The time between the first and second image of each pair of images is set to 20s. This value was experimentally established to ensure the best crosscorrelation. The cross-correlation with adaptation is applied to interrogation windows of 32x32 pixels and a 50% overlap, which provides a spatial resolution of 1.23 mm. The results are presented in Fig. 3. Here, on the raw image, the relative velocity field around the blade is superposed. The results show a good cross-correlation, except in the region near the blade surface. Despite the saturation of the image near the airfoil, the velocity field is usable, as the contour of integral to calculate the circulation is taken sufficiently away from the airfoil. Finally, the treatment of all PIV images has permitted to establish a database containing the instantaneous velocity fields and the average velocity field for each of the 9 operating points of the rotor.

Figure 3. Raw image superposed with the field of relative velocity around the airfoil

The PIV system is managed by the Dantec software DynamicsStudio 2.30. Taking images is done by implementing a laser (Litron Nano-L 200-15), with an impulse power of 2x200 mJ, a camera of 2048x2048px (Dantec FlowSense 4M), equipped with the lens (Nikkor AF-S 105 mm f/2.8 G ED IF), a frame grabber card and a synchronization system. The last synchronizes images and laser flashes with the blade angular position. The seeding of flow is made with micro droplets of olive oil created by a mist generator (10F03 Dantec). The droplets diameter is supposed upto 2-5m. 1.2. Capturing and image processing To determine the curve "lift coefficient-angle of attack", the speed of rotor rotation is varied between 1200 rpm and 1800 rpm, while keeping the upstream flow velocity equal to 9.3 m/s. The study is carried out in 9 operating points of the rotor and for each point a series of 200 double images is taken. This image capture is synchronized with the rotation of the rotor and the PIV system is triggered just when the axis of the blade becomes perpendicular to the laser plane. As the laser sheet is normal to the axis of the blade, a mirror is used, to resolve the problem of shadow, created by the upside blade surface, and to illuminate the back side. To reduce reflections of laser radiation, the entire surface of the rotor is painted with a black matt paint.

2. ANALYSIS OF RESULTS 2.1. Flow around the airfoil The purpose of these tests is to obtain sufficient information about the velocity field around the profile in order to calculate its aerodynamic properties. Indeed, it is possible to extract the aerodynamic characteristics directly from the absolute velocity field, Fig. 4.

Figure 4 Absolute velocity, r/R=0.7, n=1200 rpm

the rotor loads; and the reference speed cannot be the same as that of upstream velocity, but another, near the rotor plane and which takes into account the slowdown in the fluid flow deceleration. Indeed, the problem of the reference velocity is not easy to solve. If the studied flow field is limited too closely to the airfoil to have a good spatial resolution, then the measured field will be perturbed by the airfoil. Contrarily, if the boundary of the flow field is too far away from the airfoil, it is possible to lose accuracy. Also, with the enlargement of the measured window, the distance between the top or the bottom of the image and the rotor axis becomes rather different from the distance between the image centre and the rotor axis, Fig.2. Here, the flow deviates too far from the studied blade section. So these parts of the images are not useful for the study of flow.

Figure 5 Relative velocity, r/R=0.7, n=1200 rpm

Here, the streamlines show well that the flow is slowed and deviated by the profile in the opposite direction to rotation. We also note the existence of a stall zone at the trailing edge of the profile. This stall is a consequence of the thickness of profile at the trailing edge. The presence of the viscous wake is also visible in Fig. 5, which represents the relative velocity around the profile. Figure 6, represents the field of dimensionless unsteady relative velocity in vicinity of the trailing edge, and Fig. 7 represents the vorticity. Finally, the average relative velocity fields for different speeds of rotation are represented on Fig. 8-15.

Figure 7 Trailing edge vorticity, r/R=0.7, n=1200 rpm

Figure 6 Trailing edge wake, r/R=0.5, n=1200 tr/min

To obtain the reference velocity, it is possible to use the approach of [11], [12]. In these works; the method of free wake is applied to estimate the angles of attack along the blade. However, in the case of studied wind turbine, the rate of dissipation of tip vortex intensity is very important [10] and it is difficult to calculate the velocity induced by the shed vorticity. An early study [9], carried out by means of hotwire anemometry, showed that the flow in circumferential direction, immediately behind the rotor is perturbed mostly by the airfoil presence. The axial and tangential velocities, induced by the tip and root vortices are quiet uniform in circumferential direction. Also, the free vorticity sledded from the blade is enrolled rapidly into one tip vortex with low pitch. As a result, the flow through the rotor is similar to quasi three-dimensional flow, bounded between the vortex surfaces created by tip and root vortices.

2.2. Calculation of airfoil lift There is a very important difference between flow around an isolated profile and flow around the blade sections of a rotor blade. This difference is based the reference velocity. The actuator disk theory shows; that in the case of wind turbine, the fluid passing through the rotor is slowed, because the rotor converts kinetic energy of the wind into mechanical energy. Betzs Law announced that the maximum power of the rotor is reached when flow axial velocity at the rotor plane is 2/3 of the upstream velocity. Thus velocity depends on

Figure 8 Average velocity, 0.7 r/R, n=1200 tr/min

Figure 12 Average velocity, 0.7 r/R, n=1480 tr/min

Figure 9 Average velocity, 0.7 r/R, n=1314 tr/min

Figure 13 Average velocity, 0.7 r/R, n=1580 tr/min

Figure 10 Average velocity, 0.7 r/R, n=1360 tr/min

Figure 14 Average velocity, 0.7 r/R, n=1630 tr/min

Figure 11 Average velocity, 0.7 r/R n=1435 tr/min

Figure 15 Average velocity, 0.7 r/R, n=1800 tr/min

= ( s ) ds
0

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Then, the Biot-Savart law is applied to calculate the induced velocity at a point P(xc,yc):
U a= 2 2
c

(x
0 c

x ( s ) )2 ( yc y ( s ) )2 xc x ( s )

yc y( s)

( s ) ds

V a=

(x
0

x ( s ) )2 ( yc y ( s ) )2

( s ) ds ,

(3)

Figure 16 Calculation of velocity induced by the airfoil

Here s is the distance measured from the trailing edge, Fig. 16. In Eq.3 the dimensionless intensity of the vortex distribution (s ) is supposed to be equivalent to that of a flat plate, hence: s ( s) 2 = . ( s) = (4) c c s In eq. (3), is the circulation of the profile, which can be calculated from the velocity field obtained experimentally by PIV, see Fig. 17:
r r = v d s = udx + vdx udx udx
2 3 4 1

As a result, we can represent the flow through the blade segment, like the flow through a blade cascade. In this case; the velocity obtained by means of PIV corresponds to velocity of resultant flow. Hence, to extract the reference velocity, it is needed to subtract the velocity induced by the blade cascade from resultant flow. In this work, the used approach is similar to that proposed by Shen [11] to study the flow through a bidimensional vertical axis turbine, where, the upstream velocity of an airfoil is obtained by subtracting the velocity induced by the airfoil from global velocity field. In fact, this approach is correct only for low or moderate angles of attack; where viscosity effects are limited. In studied case, it is supposed that the r resultant velocity VR is decomposed into three components: r r r r (1) VR = V + Vad + Vi r r In Eq. (1) V is upstream velocity, Vad is the velocity induced by the rotor, which operates r like an actuator disk and Vi is the velocity induced by the blade cascade. In Eq. (1), the velocity induced by the blade cascade, because high blade pitch, is very close to that of induced by an isolated airfoil. In addition, to simplify the calculation, the airfoil is supposed to be thin with zero camber. This thin airfoil is modeled by a vortex line of length c with vortex distribution (s). This airfoil has the same circulation as the studied airfoil:

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The subtraction of velocities calculated by Eq. (3) from the PIV velocity field, permits to obtain the velocity field, which is not perturbed by the presence of the airfoil, Fig. 18.

Figure 17 Calculation of circulation

The velocity vectors, downstream of the rotor, show that the flow diverges because the rotor operates like an actuator disk and decelerates the flow. Also it turns the fluid in the opposite direction of the rotor. It should be noted that the disturbance introduced by the profile, which is due to viscosity, cannot be eliminated

particularly the viscous wake of airfoil trailing edge. By averaging the axial velocity field upstream of the profile, we obtain the averaged axial velocity UR which is not disturbed by the airfoil. Subsequently, one can calculate the relative velocity of reference WR at profile upstream:
2 WR = U R + ( r ) 2

stagnation point. However, as the airfoil has some camber so the lift at = 0 incidence is not zero, and it must also be noted, that the Reynolds number during the tests is low i.e. Re < 130 000. The lift curves for r/R=0.7 and r/R=0.9 are nearly the same, but slope coefficient CL, for r/R=0.5 is greater, due to three dimensional effects.

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Here r is the peripheral velocity.

Figure 19 Velocity triangle and aerodynamic forces


Figure 18. Corrected velocity field

The lift force L can be obtained from KuttaJoukowsky theorem: L = WR (7) On the other hand, L can be expressed in terms of lift coefficient, dynamic pressure and the airfoil chord as reference. W 2 (8) L = CL R c 2 By combining Eqs. (7)-(8) the lift coefficient of the profile can be obtained as: 2 CL = (9) cWR The corresponding flow angle , see Fig. 19, can be calculated from averaged velocity upstream of the airfoil:

Figure 20 Lift of blade section at 0.5 r/R, 0.7 r/R and 0.9 r/R.

U = arctan R r

3. CONCLUSION In this work, we propose a non-intrusive method to extract the lift coefficient of a rotating airfoil and to establish what is called the rotating polar. This method is based on the analysis of the velocity field obtained by the PIV. The study is conducted in wind tunnel on a wind turbine rotor and for the blade profile at 0.5r/R, 0.7r/R and 0.9r/R. for the various angles of incidence, different speeds of rotation of the turbine are tested. For each operating point, a series of PIV images is taken. Processing and image analysis enable to obtain the velocity fields and

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Subsequently, taking into account the pitch blade angle , the angle of attack is: = (11) To obtain the aerodynamic characteristics of the profile, we calculate the coefficients of lift and the angles of incidence for different rotational speeds. The results, presented in Fig. 20, show moderate lift coefficients which is lower than the expected values. Most probably this is a consequence of thick and rounded trailing edge which cannot fix the trailing

to calculate the circulation around the profile. To obtain the inflow reference velocity, necessary for calculating the aerodynamic coefficients, the velocity perturbation due to the airfoil is also taken into account. For this, the influence of the airfoil is modelled by a thin profile, which has the same circulation as the measured one. Then the velocity induced by airfoil is subtracted from the velocity field obtained by PIV. Subsequently, the resultant axial velocities upstream the airfoil is averaged. The vector of relative velocity to the profile, which serves as a reference, is obtained by composition of the averaged velocities and peripheral speed. Finally, the lift coefficient is calculated by means of Kutta-Joukowsky theorem, using the circulation created by the profile and the reference inflow velocity. The calculation is performed for all speeds of rotation of the turbine, thereby establishing the relationship between lift coefficient and angle of incidence. The obtained results are useful database for numerical simulation. It is envisaged to study a new wind turbine model equipped with airfoils which have well known aerodynamic properties in the case of low Reynolds number. Also it is previewed to explore of the airfoil characteristics in vicinity of blade root. As the flow in this region is highly three-dimensional, it is envisaged to use stereo PIV. 4. REFERENCES 1. Tangler J. (2004) Insight into Wind Turbine Stall and Post-stall Aerodynamics, Wind Energy 7, pp. 247260 2. Lindenburg, C. (2004). Modelling of rotational augmentation based on engineering considerations and measurements, In: Proc. Europ. Wind Energy Conf., London. 3. Hand M., Simms D., Fingersh L.J. et al (2001). Unsteady Aerodynamics Experiment Phase VI: Wind Tunnel Test Configurations and Available Data Campaigns, Tech. Rep. NREL/TP-50029955. 4. Maeda T., Kamada Y., Sakai, Y., Takahara N., (2005). Experimental Study on Flow around Blades of Horizontal Axis Wind Turbine in Wind Tunnel, Trans. JSME B, 71(701) 5. Snel H., Schepers J. G., Montgomerie B., (2007). The MEXICO project (Model

Experiments in Controlled Conditions): The database and first results of data processing and interpretation, J. Phys.: Conf. Ser. 75 6. Sicot C., Devinant P., Loyer S., Hureau J. (2008). Rotational and turbulence effects on a wind turbine blade. Investigation of the stall mechanisms, J. of Wind Eng. Ind. Aero., Vol 96, Issues 8-9. 7. Grant I., Parkin P. (2000). A DPIV study of the trailing vortex elements from the blades of a horizontal axis wind turbine in yaw, Experiments in Fluids 28, 368-376 8. Smith, G.H., Grant, I., Liu, Infield, D. Eich, T. (1991). The Wind Tunnel Application of Particle Image Velocimetry to the Measurement of Flow Over a Wind Turbine, Wind Engineering, Vol. 15, No. 6 p. 302. 9. Massouh, F. Dobrev, I.,(2007). Exploration of the vortex wake behind of wind turbine rotor, J. Phys.: Conf. Ser. 75, 012036. 10. Dobrev I., Maalouf B., Troldborg N., Massouh F. (2008). Investigation of the Wind Turbine Vortex Structure, 14th Int. Symp. Appl. of Laser Tech. Fluid Mech., Lisbon, Portugal. 11. Shen, W., Zhang, J.H., Srensen, J.N (2009). The Actuator Surface Model: A New NavierStokes Based Model for Rotor Computations, J. Sol. En. Engn., Vol. 131/011002. 12. Sant T., Van Kuik G., Van Bussel GJW. (2006). Estimating the angle of attack from blade pressure measurements on the NREL Phase VI rotor using a free wake vortex model: axial conditions, Wind Energy, Vol 9, Issue 6

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