Thesis From Delf Univ

Master of Science Thesis
Boundary Layer Suction on a Horizontal Axis

Wind Turbine
An Aerodynamic Design of a Thick Airfoil for Application
Lex Zwang
November 12, 2009

Boundary Layer Suction on a Horizontal
Axis Wind Turbine
An Aerodynamic Design of a Thick Airfoil for Application

Master of Science Thesis

For obtaining the degree of Master of Science in Aerospace
Engineering at Delft University of Technology

Lex Zwang
November 12, 2009

Faculty of Aerospace Engineering Delft University of Technology
Actiflow B.V. Breda

Copyright L. Zwang B.Sc.
All rights reserved.

Delft University Of Technology
Department Of
Aerodynamics and Wind Energy

The undersigned hereby certify that they have read and recommend to the Faculty of Aerospace
Engineering for acceptance a thesis entitled Boundary Layer Suction on a Horizontal Axis Wind
Turbine by Lex Zwang in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Science.

Dated: November 12, 2009
Supervisors:
Prof.dr. G.J.W. van Bussel

ir. A. Barlas

ir. E. Terry

ir. A.W. Hulskamp

ir. W.A. Timmer

Abstract i

M.Sc. Thesis Lex Zwang
Abstract

In the past decades the size of wind turbines blades is considerably increased, there are even
prototypes designed and build with blade diameters up to 120 meters. This growth in blade length
and turbine size tends to make the blades a larger proportion of the production costs. However, the
blades themselves only represents 10-15% of total system costs, therefore reducing the Cost Of
Energy is limited. Nevertheless a reduction of COE is possible, an innovative blade design that
reduces loading and thereby affecting other major components (tower, drive train) will have a
snowball effect on the reduction of the costs. For advanced wind turbine designs an increasing
thickness of the airfoils is a major contributor to the restraining mass growth of the wind turbine,
though the increase in thickness will affect the aerodynamic performance of the blade. The objective
of this study is to design a thicker airfoil for a horizontal axis wind turbine with the application of
boundary layer suction. The extra thickness increases the stiffness of a wind turbine blade while the
desired aerodynamic performance is maintained by the application of boundary layer suction.
For this end a series of airfoils are produced with different thicknesses and originate from the DU-91-
W2-250 wind turbine airfoil. A script file then controls RFOIL-suc, to produce the new airfoils and
their polars, and Matlab to perform the validation of these airfoils by means of the selection criteria.
The possible candidate airfoils were fine-tuned by the script file, the camber of the airfoil is adjusted
and the airfoil goes through a similar selection process. The newly designed airfoil, the AF-0901, was
optimized while keeping equal aerodynamic performance in terms of maximum lift-to-drag ratio,
maximum lift coefficient and smooth stall control. A high maximum lift-to-drag ratio yields a high
power output, while minimizing the maximum lift coefficient and obtaining smooth stall control
reduces the operational loads on a wind turbine. The variation of the suction velocity is a possible
design option for engineers, this variation will be an assessment between additional power output or
reduced loads.
For the evaluation of the structural benefits of the newly designed airfoil, a structural 2-D
comparison was made between the old DU-91-W2-250 and the new AF-0901 airfoil. First a simple
beam theory and more accurate XFOIL thin walled shell stiffness data was used to compare both
airfoils. As a second comparison, a detailed structural design with actual lay-up data from the
reference wind turbine was implemented in PreComp. The new 20% thicker AF-0901 airfoil was then
optimized to match the original stiffness requirements. For the simple beam theory only the spar
caps were taken into account and for the shell structure one global material was assumed for the
different sections of the airfoil. These methods gave a reduction in materials of 17%. For a more in
depth analysis the program PreComp was applied, therefore a structural analysis with different
laminates and materials for the spar caps, webs and skins is possible. First, overall material used for
the airfoil was reduced. With this approach the mass density, the section mass per unit length, was
reduced with more than 28%. Secondly, the spar cap material was decreased as with the simple
beam theory. Reducing only the materials used for the spar caps gave a reduction in mass of almost
19%.

Acknowledgements iii

Acknowledgements

I wish to thank the following persons for their assistance and knowledge. First of all I would like to
thank the people at Actiflow for a great time during my graduation project and also had a
contribution to this thesis; Eric, Roy, Roland, Jeroen, Oscar and Vincent. My supervisors for their time
and assistance; ir. E. Terry from Actiflow, ir. A. Barlas and Prof.dr. G.J.W. van Bussel from Delft
University of Technology. Additionally, I also owe many thanks to ir. L.M.M. Boermans and ir. W.A.
Timmer for sharing their knowledge on airfoil design and ir. A.W. Hulskamp for gaining insight into
the structural analysis of a wind turbine blade.
Finally, thanks to thank all my friends and family for their support during my time as an aerospace
engineering student. In particular I like to thank my parents and my girlfriend for their unconditional
and never-ending support during my time in Delft.

Lex Zwang
Utrecht, November 12, 2009

Table of Contents v

Table of Contents

Abstract .................................................................................................................................................... i
Acknowledgements ................................................................................................................................. iii
List of Figures ........................................................................................................................................... ix
List of Symbols ......................................................................................................................................... xi
1 Introduction ..................................................................................................................................... 1
1.1 Introduction ............................................................................................................................. 1
1.2 Objectives of present study ..................................................................................................... 2
1.3 Outline of the report ............................................................................................................... 2
2 Theory overview .............................................................................................................................. 3
2.1 Structural design...................................................................................................................... 3
2.1.1 The main loads ................................................................................................................ 3
2.1.2 The structure of an airfoil ................................................................................................ 3
2.1.3 The simple beam theory .................................................................................................. 4
2.2 Airfoil design ............................................................................................................................ 6
2.3 Boundary layer control ............................................................................................................ 7
2.3.1 Boundary layer suction .................................................................................................... 7
2.3.2 Moving thickness backwards ........................................................................................... 7
3 Design Process ................................................................................................................................. 9
3.1 Design choices ......................................................................................................................... 9
3.1.1 Reference wind turbine ................................................................................................... 9
3.1.2 Suction distribution ....................................................................................................... 11
3.2 RFOIL-suc ............................................................................................................................... 13
3.3 Profile field ............................................................................................................................ 14
3.4 Selection criteria .................................................................................................................... 15
3.5 Flow diagram ......................................................................................................................... 16
3.6 Results from the profile field ................................................................................................. 21
3.7 Modify camber ...................................................................................................................... 33
3.8 Wind tunnel adjustments ...................................................................................................... 37
4 Structural benefits ......................................................................................................................... 39
4.1 Thin walled shell structure .................................................................................................... 39
4.2 The PreComp method ........................................................................................................... 41
vi Table of Contents

Lex Zwang M.Sc Thesis
4.2.1 Assumptions .................................................................................................................. 42
4.2.2 PreComp results ............................................................................................................ 43
5 Design issues ................................................................................................................................. 47
5.1 Modify suction distribution ................................................................................................... 47
5.1.1 Variation of suction length ............................................................................................ 47
5.1.2 Variation of suction velocity .......................................................................................... 48
5.1.3 Apply linear suction ....................................................................................................... 50
5.2 Suction variation due to gusts ............................................................................................... 52
5.3 Wind tunnel considerations .................................................................................................. 53
5.4 Comparison with similar profile ............................................................................................ 54
6 Conclusions and recommendations .............................................................................................. 57
6.1 Conclusions ............................................................................................................................ 57
6.2 Recommendations................................................................................................................. 58
6.2.1 Wind tunnel test for the AF-0901 airfoil ....................................................................... 58
6.2.2 Redesign of other airfoils to fit BLS ............................................................................... 58
6.2.3 Intensive study to optimize structural design ............................................................... 58
A Airfoil example files ....................................................................................................................... 59
A.1 Coordinate file ....................................................................................................................... 59
A.2 Suction distribution file ......................................................................................................... 59
A.3 Polar file from RFOIL .............................................................................................................. 60
B Visual Basic Script files .................................................................................................................. 61
B.1 CreateProfileField.vbs ........................................................................................................... 61
B.2 CreateSuction.vbs .................................................................................................................. 62
B.3 CreatePolar.vbs ..................................................................................................................... 63
C MATLAB files .................................................................................................................................. 67
C.1 CreateCorrectSuction.M ........................................................................................................ 67
C.2 FilterData.M........................................................................................................................... 68
C.3 MATLAB example data .......................................................................................................... 72
D Structural properties tables .......................................................................................................... 73
E Structural lay-up pictures .............................................................................................................. 75
F PreComp example input files ........................................................................................................ 79
F.1 Main Input File: DU25.pci .................................................................................................. 79
F.2 Airfoil Data File: af-du25.inp .............................................................................................. 79
F.3 Internal Structure Data File: int-du25.inp .......................................................................... 80
Table of Contents vii

F.4 Materials Data File: materials.inp ...................................................................................... 82
G PreComp example output files ...................................................................................................... 83
G.1 BModes Output File: du25.out_bmd ................................................................................. 83
H Pressure gradient in a closed rotating duct .................................................................................. 85
Bibliography ........................................................................................................................................... 87

List of Figures ix

List of Figures

Figure 1-1: Mass growth for commercial MW-scale blade design [21] .................................................................. 1
Figure 2-1: Common structural architecture for wind turbine blade cross section [21] .......................................... 4
Figure 2-2: Simplified structural model of a cross section [8] ................................................................................. 4
Figure 2-3: Development of the boundary layer affected by boundary layer suction ............................................. 7
Figure 3-1: DU-91-W2-250 profile normalized to its chord c ................................................................................ 10
Figure 3-2: Pressure along the length of the blade [1] .......................................................................................... 11
Figure 3-3: Suction area on an example profile .................................................................................................... 12
Figure 3-4: Suction velocity (v/U) vs chord wise position (x/c) .............................................................................. 13
Figure 3-5: Airfoil and wake panelling with vorticity () and source distributions (o), with TE detail [6] ............. 13
Figure 3-6: Profile field of new created airfoils ..................................................................................................... 15
Figure 3-7: Polar curves for DU-91-W2-250 (Re = 8e
6
and c/r = 0.09) .................................................................. 16
Figure 3-8: General flowchart design process ....................................................................................................... 17
Figure 3-9: C
L
/C
D-max
for v/U = 0 and clean configuration ...................................................................................... 18
Figure 3-10: Candidate airfoils for v/U = 0 (clean) ................................................................................................ 19
Figure 3-11: Definition of alternative selection criteria......................................................................................... 20
Figure 3-12: Polar examples of 1-5.air (Re = 8e
6
, c/r = 0.09 and clean) ................................................................ 20
Figure 3-13: C
L,max
and C
L,design
for clean conditions and v/U = 0 ........................................................................... 21
Figure 3-14: C
L,max
and C
L,design
for soiled conditions and v/U = 0 ........................................................................... 22
Figure 3-15: Result airfoils with thickness and position ........................................................................................ 23
Figure 3-16: Polars of the selected airfoils with v/U = 0.003 (clean; Re = 8e
6
; c/r = 0.09) .................................... 24
Figure 3-17: Polars of the selected airfoils with v/U = 0.003 (soiled; Re = 8e
6
; c/r = 0.09) .................................... 24
Figure 3-18: C
L
/C
D-max
for v/U = 0, clean configuration and Re = 8e
6
..................................................................... 25
Figure 3-19: C
L
/C
D-max
for v/U = 0.001, clean configuration and Re = 8e
6
.............................................................. 25
Figure 3-20: C
L
/C
D-max
6
.............................................................. 26
Figure 3-21: C
L
/C
D-max
6
.............................................................. 26
Figure 3-22: C
L
/C
D-max
for v/U = 0, soiled conditions and Re = 8e
6
......................................................................... 27
Figure 3-23: C
L
/C
D-max
for v/U = 0.001, soiled conditions and Re = 8e
6
.................................................................. 27
Figure 3-24: C
L
/C
D-max
6
.................................................................. 28
Figure 3-25: C
L
/C
D-max
6
.................................................................. 28
Figure 3-26: Candidate airfoils for v/U = 0 (clean) ................................................................................................ 29
Figure 3-27: Candidate airfoils for v/U = 0.001 (clean) ......................................................................................... 29
Figure 3-30: Candidate airfoils for v/U = 0 (soiled) ............................................................................................... 31
Figure 3-31: Candidate airfoils for v/U = 0.001 (soiled) ........................................................................................ 31
Figure 3-34: Camber distribution for example profile ........................................................................................... 33
Figure 3-35: Effect of moving the camber point for v/U = 0.003 (soiled; Re = 8e
6
; c/r = 0.09) .............................. 34
Figure 3-36: Effect of up scaling the camber value for v/U = 0.003 (soiled; Re = 8e
6
; c/r = 0.09) ......................... 35
Figure 3-37: Result of camber modification for v/U = 0.003 (soiled; Re = 8e
6
; c/r = 0.09) .................................... 36
Figure 3-38: Result of camber modification for v/U = 0.003 (clean; Re = 8e
6
; c/r = 0.09) ..................................... 36
Figure 3-39: Airfoil growth during the design process .......................................................................................... 37
Figure 3-40: Effect of wind tunnel modifications for v/U = 0.003 (clean; Re = 8e
6
; c/r = 0.09) ............................. 38
Figure 3-41: Effect of wind tunnel modifications for v/U = 0.003 (soiled; Re = 8e
6
; c/r = 0.09) ............................ 38
x List of Figures

Figure 4-1: Bending parameters from XFOIL ......................................................................................................... 39
Figure 4-2: Thickness ratio vs. bending moments ratio ......................................................................................... 41
Figure 4-3: Profile lay-out used for comparison .................................................................................................... 43
Figure 5-1: Polars of the AF-0901 airfoil for different suction lengths (soiled case; Re = 8e6; v/U = 0.003; c/r =
0.09) ...................................................................................................................................................................... 48
Figure 5-2: Effect of suction velocity (clean case; Re = 8e6; c/r = 0.09) ................................................................ 49
Figure 5-3: Effect of suction velocity (soiled case; Re = 8e6; c/r = 0.09) ................................................................ 50
Figure 5-4: Different suction distributions ............................................................................................................. 51
Figure 5-5: Effect of different suction distributions (soiled case; Re = 4e6; c/r = 0) .............................................. 52
Figure 5-6: Comparison of XFOIL, RFOIL and wind tunnel tests (clean case; Re = 3e6; M = 0.21; c/r = 0) ............ 54
Figure 5-7: Comparison of XFOIL, RFOIL and wind tunnel tests (soiled case; Re = 3e6; M = 0.22; c/r = 0) ........... 54
Figure 5-8: Comparison of airfoils with RFOIL (Re = 3e6; M = 0.22; c/r = 0) ......................................................... 55
Figure E-1: Blade profile lay-out [14] .................................................................................................................... 75
Figure E-2: Blade laminate lay-up [14] .................................................................................................................. 76
Figure E-3: Profile lay-out example [14] ................................................................................................................ 77
Figure E-4: Ply angle definition [2] ........................................................................................................................ 77

List of Symbols xi

List of Symbols

Abbreviations
AF ActiFlow
COE Cost Of Energy
DU Delft University
HAWT Horizontal Axis Wind Turbine
NACA National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics
NREL National Renewable Energy Laboratory
VBS Visual Basic Script

Greek Symbols
Angle of attack
Section pitch angle
Density kg/m
2
Stress N/m
2
Inflow angle
Rotational speed rad/s

Mathematical Symbols
A Area m
2
a Axial induction factor -
a Width m
a Tangential induction factor -
c Chord length m
C
D
Drag coefficient -
C
L
Lift coefficient -
C
p
Pressure coefficient -
D Drag N
d Height m
E Youngs modulus Pa
I

Area moment of inertia m
4
L Lift N
M
X
Flap wise bending moment Nm
M
Y
Edgewise (lead-lag) bending moment Nm
N Normal force N
R Overall radius m
r Local radius m
t Layer thickness m
t Spar cap thickness m
t Wall thickness m
U Air velocity at the blade m/s
v Absolute suction velocity m/s
V
wind
Wind speed m/s

Introduction 1

1 Introduction

1.1 Introduction

In the past decades the size of wind turbine blades is considerably increased, there are even
prototypes designed and build with blade diameters up to 120 meters. This growth in blade length
and turbine size tends to make the blades a larger proportion of the production costs. However, the
blades themselves only represents 10-15% of total system costs, therefore reducing the Cost Of
Energy (COE) is limited [21]. Nevertheless a reduction of COE is possible, an innovative blade design
that reduces loading and thereby affecting other major components (tower, drive train) will have a
snowball effect on the reduction of the costs.
Following the laws of physics the mass of a wind turbine grows according to R
3
, the cubic law of mass
growth. The trend line of the blade mass in Figure 1-1 shows however a growth of R
2.3
, with the use
of advanced technologies the cubic law was beaten. The scatter of data is mainly due to different
design approaches of the manufactures. For example, the growth rate of the highlighted Vestas
blades is close to cubic law (R
2.7
) because it was already a lightweight design, the lower growth rate
than the cubic law is probably due to the use of thicker airfoils. On the other hand the growth rate of
the LM class is as low as R
1.7
, this is also due to thicker airfoils but especially the use of improved
materials here leads to the lower growth rate. For advanced wind turbine designs the increasing
thickness of the airfoils is thus a major contributor to the restraining mass growth. However, the
increase in thickness will negatively affect the aerodynamic performance of the blade.

Figure 1-1: Mass growth for commercial MW-scale blade design [21]

One of the possibilities to improve the aerodynamic performance of thicker airfoils is applying
boundary layer suction. In 2009 Actiflow BV, a spin-off company from the Technical University of
Delft, performed a feasibility study for the application of boundary layer control in wind turbine
design. This study showed that for airfoils with an increased thickness the application of boundary
layer suction results in the aerodynamic performance of relatively thinner airfoils. However, the
airfoils used here were not designed for use without boundary layer control and an aerodynamic
redesign of the blade would be beneficial for a successful applications of boundary layer suction in
wind turbine blade design [11].

1.2 Objectives of present study

During the research on boundary layer suction at Actiflow BV it became clear that drastically
changing the aerodynamic geometric design of the blade would have the largest potential in finding
successful applications for boundary layer suction in wind turbine blade design. The aim is now to
redesign an existing profile for use of boundary layer suction and thus focusing on the aerodynamic
design of a new wind turbine blade which uses boundary layer suction. The main objective of this
study can be summarized as follows:
To design a thicker airfoil for a horizontal axis wind turbine with the application of boundary layer
suction, thereby increasing the stiffness of the wind turbine blade while maintaining the desired
aerodynamic performance.

1.3 Outline of the report

In chapter 1 an introduction into the subject of this study is given, along with a motivation for the
start of this project. Also the objective of this study is given in this chapter. An introduction into the
theory of the subject is presented in chapter 2, including an overview of the structural and
aerodynamic design of an airfoil and a small overview of boundary layer control is given. In chapter 3
the complete design process of the new airfoil will be discussed. Chapter 4 gives a description of the
structural benefits gained by this new airfoil. In chapter 5 the design issues belonging to this airfoil
are treated. The conclusions and recommendations that follow from this study are mentioned in
chapter 6. In appendix A some example files for the calculations are given, appendix B gives the used
visual basic script files and the Matlab files are shown in appendix C. Structural material data is given
in appendix D and accompanied pictures in appendix E. The input and output files for PreComp are
respectively given in appendix F en appendix G. The calculation of a closed rotating duct can be
found in appendix H.

Theory overview 3

2 Theory overview

In this chapter a small overview is given of the theory used for this thesis. The most important loads
on a wind turbine needed for a simple structural analysis are discussed in the first part. Section 2.2 is
a summary with highlights for the aerodynamic design of a wind turbine blade. The basics of
boundary layer control are given in the last section.

2.1 Structural design

2.1.1 The main loads

Wind turbines extract energy from the wind by slowing down the wind using a force in the upwind
direction, the thrust. This thrust is caused by a pressure jump over the rotor, induced by the flow
past the rotor blades. Besides a normal component to the flow, the thrust, there is also a tangential
component of the force in the rotational direction of the blades, which delivers the shaft torque.
Loads are transformed to a position close to the root as flap wise and edgewise (lead-lag) bending
moments together with a yaw and tilt rotor moment. The flap wise bending moment (M
X
) comes
mostly from the thrust and tends to deflect the blades out of the rotor plane in the downwind
direction (most important for tower clearance).The edgewise bending moment (M
Y
) in the plane of
rotation stems from the tangential forces.

2.1.2 The structure of an airfoil

An example of a typical structural lay-out of an airfoil for a wind turbine blade is shown in Figure 2-1,
the main parts are the spar caps, the shear webs and the outer skins. The spar caps are the most
critical for preventing the blade from colliding with the tower as they carry the flap wise bending
loads. The spar caps are relatively thick laminates, up to 10 centimetres at inboard sections, with
primarily unidirectional fibres to bear the flap wise bending moment. The shear webs mainly pass on
shear loads and consist of much thinner laminates than the spar caps. The blade skins are particular
good for buckling resistance and have an outer layer which is weather resistant. They typically consist
of double-bias or tri-axial fibreglass layers with a balsa or foam core. The internal and external
structure of a wind turbine blade thus has several purposes, the most important structural reasons
are:
- Providing stiffness (EI), especially against bending to prevent collision of the blade.
- Providing strength for fatigue loading and extreme load cases.
- Preventing buckling of the outer skins.

4 Theory overview


Figure 2-1: Common structural architecture for wind turbine blade cross section [21]

2.1.3 The simple beam theory

As mentioned above, stiffness is required to prevent collision of the blade with the tower of a wind
turbine. Modelling the blade as a beam, where the spar caps are the thick upper and lower flanges,
simplifies the structural calculations for our problem. Furthermore neglecting the edgewise moment
(M
Y
) and the normal force N in comparison with the much larger flap wise bending moment is
acceptable. The stress from the bending moments M
X
and M
Y
and the normal force N in the cross
section of an airfoil about the two principal axes is found with equation (2.1) [8].

( ) ,
X Y
X Y
M M N
x y y x
I I A
o = + (2.1)

Figure 2-2: Simplified structural model of a cross section [8]

Moment of inertia about the flap wise axis for this simplified beam structure, where the spar caps
represent the thick upper and lower flanges of a beam, is [12]:
Theory overview 5


( ) ( )
2 3 2
1
2* 2*
12
X X
I I Ad at a t d
| |
= + = +
|
\ .
(2.2)
With:
-
X
the moment of inertia about its centroidal axis
- a the width of the spar cap
- t the thickness of the spar cap (also t=b
1
-b
2
)
- d the distance from the centreline to the middle of a spar cap

Taken into account that t << d and thus neglecting the term with t
3
, equation (2.2) simplifies to:

2
2*
X
I tad = (2.3)

From the equation above it becomes clear that the stiffness (EI) of a blade modelled as a simple
beam is affected by the width (a) and thickness (t) of the spar caps, but most of all by the distance
from the centreline or the thickness of the blade. For the simplified beam in Figure 2-2, the edgewise
moment can be neglected with respect to the bending moment, adding that the stress due to the
normal force is small compared to the stress caused by the bending moments, equation (2.1) reduces
to:

( ) ,
X
X
M
x y y
I
o = (1.4)

It can now easily be seen that the highest stresses occur when y is at its largest, thus at y=d, this gives
together with equation (2.3) for the stress:

( )
2
,
2 2
X X
M M
x y d
tad tad
o = = (2.5)

As an example we take two profiles with the same material lay-up, with one airfoil 20% thicker (d
new

= 1.2*d
old
) than the other airfoil. Furthermore the bending moment is assumed to be fixed for both
cases. Now we can compare both designs with the restriction that the stresses remain equal.
6 Theory overview


2 2
1
0.83
1.2 1.2
X X
old new
new old old
old new old
M M
tad tad
t d d
t d d
| | | |
=
| |
\ . \ .
= = = =
(2.6)

This simple example already shows the possible reduction in material, the spar cap thickness is
reduced to 83% of the original value by merely increasing the thickness of the airfoil.

2.2 Airfoil design

The reduction of the total cost of energy (COE) is the driving force behind the design of a modern
wind turbine. The design of airfoils not only focuses on maximizing the energy yield, an efficient
structural design is just as important. The objective to maximize energy yield means that from an
aerodynamic point of view airfoils producing the highest power coefficient are the best. This can only
be achieved with airfoils which have a high lift-to-drag ratio. The accompanying lift value at this lift-to
drag ratio, the design lift coefficient, determines the optimum chord length of the blade [16]. A
higher design lift will lead to slightly smaller blade chords for an optimal designed blade with the
same tip speed ratio.
For an efficient structural design the produced loads are the key parameter, the maximum lift
coefficient and the possible high dynamic overshoot are then to be considered. To select an airfoil
which meets these structural requirements the maximum static operating loads can be used. This is
the product of the maximum lift coefficient and its optimum chord (c* C
L,max
). For a modern pitch
controlled rotor, like the three bladed reference wind turbine, stall behaviour is not one of the
driving design issues anymore. Still, a gradual or smooth stall around and after the maximum lift
coefficient is advisable, this prevents high load fluctuations around stall. The optimum blade design is
thus a combination between aerodynamic and structural requirements:
- A high lift-to-drag ratio to maximize energy yield.
- A limited maximum lift coefficient to reduce aerodynamic loading on the blade.

These requirements for modern wind turbine airfoils vary along the span of the blade, toward the
root structural demands are higher than at the mid-span or tip locations, resulting in airfoils with
more than 25% thickness for additional stiffness. Airfoils can increase up to 40% relative thickness
inboards, at inboard locations also rotational effects play an important role. Thick airfoils provide
more structural stiffness and reduces weight, leading to a reduction of fatigue loads and costs.
However, the thickness causes increased pressure gradients over the aft part of the airfoil upper
surface, which in particular with leading edge contamination may lead to early turbulent separation
and reduction of the maximum lift coefficient [18].
Theory overview 7

Therefore, for example the DU-series airfoils have smaller upper surfaces and thicker lower surfaces
with aft-loading to compensate for the reduction in lift due to the restricted upper surface
thickness. This is where boundary layer suction becomes beneficial, increasing the upper surface
without the loss of aerodynamic performance. The rotational effects may reduce roughness
sensitivity at the inboard sections, still contaminations of the blade nose cannot be avoided. The
degree of this soiling differs strongly, tests in the wind tunnel are not always similar and soiling is also
hard to predict and simulate.

2.3 Boundary layer control

2.3.1 Boundary layer suction

With boundary layer suction a small amount of air flowing around an airfoil is sucked through a
porous part of the skin. The driving force behind the airflow through this porous material is the
pressure difference between the outside and the inside, this principal is described in section 3.1.2.
Due to the adverse pressure gradient over the rear part of the upper surface the boundary layer
becomes thicker and more unstable, causing flow reversal and separation. By removing the air near
the wall the properties of the boundary layer close to the wall change, see Figure 2-3. Air from higher
in the boundary layer flows closer toward the surface of the airfoil, practically replacing the air that
has been sucked through the airfoil wall. This effect results in a higher average energy of the
boundary layer since high energy air replaces the low energy air that is removed by boundary layer
suction. This re-energizing of the boundary layer has a stabilizing effect, which postpones separation
and therefore increases lift en decreases drag [11].

Figure 2-3: Development of the boundary layer affected by boundary layer suction

2.3.2 Moving thickness backwards

Placing the maximum thickness of the airfoil far backwards and with that obtaining long runs of
laminar flow (and thus decreasing drag) was first seen at the well known NACA 6-series airfoils. This
was the first attempt to reduce skin-friction drag through laminarisation of the boundary layer. This
8 Theory overview

principle has led to very thick airfoils where the flow remained laminar all the way to the trailing
edge by proper shaping and adding a suction slot. For a long run of laminar flow at high Reynolds
numbers through favourable pressure gradients, airfoils will have relatively great maximum thickness
located far backwards. Thus increasing the danger for separation of the turbulent boundary layer
over the rear part of the airfoil due to the larger adverse pressure gradient. It is suggested by van
Ingen et al. [9] that laminarisation through shaping should be combined with passive or active
control of the boundary layer. The same article shows that laminarisation by shaping together with
turbulent boundary layer control, is an attractive scheme for performance improvement, for example
lower drag. Important properties for such laminar, or low drag, airfoils are:
- Low minimal drag for a certain lift range (the drag bucket) due to long runs of attached flow
- A rearward location of the pressure minimum which decreases the drag
- Good stall characteristics of the trailing edge stall type, separation begins at the trailing
edge and slowly moves to the leading edge
The pressure rise after the pressure minimum is strongly affected by the position of this pressure
minimum. A rearward pressure minimum will lead to an increased pressure rise behind this minimum
and thus an unfavourable pressure gradient. A large pressure rise will lead to separation of the
turbulent boundary layer and an increase in drag. Although suction could prevent this separation, a
compromise will have to be found. Suction of the boundary layer after this pressure minimum has
also practical advantages. There is no interference with the structural integrity of the airfoil, suction
takes place behind the load bearing box spar section with shear webs [7].

Design Process 9

3 Design Process

The complete design process of the new thicker airfoil is discussed in this chapter, first the starting
point is given in section 3.1. The developed tool to design and select possible airfoils is explained in
sections 3.3 to 3.5. Results from this design tool are discussed in section 3.6 and fine-tuning of the
airfoil is shown in the last two sections.

3.1 Design choices

3.1.1 Reference wind turbine

The first step in the design process is preparing a proper foundation for upcoming computations.
Hence we have to choose a baseline wind turbine which acts as a reference during the complete
process. The chosen turbine, commonly used in the wind energy industry, is based on the data of the
European UpWind reference wind turbine description [20]. This fictitious 5MW horizontal axis wind
turbine (HAWT) is originally based on models of a LMH 64.5 meter blade, which have been used with
various small modifications in projects such as DOWEC, MANGROVE, and the National Renewable
Energy Laboratory (NREL) baseline turbine. The general description of the wind turbine is given in
Table 3-1, although this wind turbine is not in production, it serves as a very useful baseline for this
study.

Table 3-1: Characteristics of the 5 MW UPWIND model
Wind regime IEC Cass 1A / Class 6 winds
Rotor orientation Clockwise rotation - Upwind
Control Variable speed - collective pitch
Cut in wind speed 4 m/s
Cut out wind speed 25 m/s
Rated power 5 MW
Number of blades 3
Rotor diameter 126 m
Hub diameter 3 m
Hub height 90 m
Rated rotor speed 12.1 rpm
Maximum tip speed 80 m/s

From this reference model the 25% thickness DU-91-W2-250 shown in Figure 3-1 is picked as the
baseline airfoil as input for the design process. At this mid-span location the aerodynamic properties
are less crucial than more outwards of the blade, and hence a small change or reduction in
aerodynamics will not critically effect the performance of the wind turbine. However the
10 Design Process

aerodynamic properties at this location are more dominating than at the inboard section, resulting in
a trade-off between aerodynamic and structural properties. This validates the application of
boundary layer suction for the mid-span location, increasing stiffness and still retaining equivalent
aerodynamic quality.

Figure 3-1: DU-91-W2-250 profile normalized to its chord c

Table 3-2: Aerodynamic properties reference wind turbine [20]
Element nr. Rotor
radius
Twist Chord Pitch axis
aft LE
Coord.
Pitch axis
Thickness Airfoil
[m] [deg] [m] [*chord] [m] [%]
1 2.87 13.31 3.54 0.50 0.00 100.00 Cylinder 1
2 5.60 13.31 3.85 0.50 0.00 90.00 Cylinder 1
3 8.33 13.31 4.17 0.43 0.00 70.00 Cylinder 2
4 11.75 13.31 4.56 0.38 0.00 40.00 DU-00-W-401
5 15.85 11.48 4.65 0.38 0.00 35.00 DU-00-W-350
6 19.95 10.16 4.46 0.38 0.00 35.00 DU-00-W-350
7 24.05 9.01 4.25 0.38 0.00 30.00 DU-97-W-300
8 28.15 7.79 4.01 0.38 0.00 25.00 DU-91-W2-250
9 32.25 6.54 3.75 0.38 0.00 25.00 DU-91-W2-250
10 36.35 5.36 3.50 0.38 0.00 21.00 DU-93-W-210
11 40.45 4.19 3.26 0.38 0.00 21.00 DU-93-W-210
12 44.55 3.13 3.01 0.38 0.00 18.00 NACA-64618
13 48.65 2.32 2.76 0.38 0.00 18.00 NACA-64618
14 52.75 1.53 2.52 0.38 0.00 18.00 NACA-64618
15 56.17 0.86 2.31 0.38 0.00 18.00 NACA-64618
16 58.90 0.37 2.09 0.38 0.00 18.00 NACA-64618
17 61.63 0.11 1.42 0.38 0.00 18.00 NACA-64618
0 0.1 0.2 0.3 0.4 0.5 0.6 0.7 0.8 0.9 1
-0.25
-0.2
-0.15
-0.1
-0.05
0
0.05
0.1
0.15
0.2
0.25
x/c
y/c

DU-91-W2-250
Thickness: t/c = 0.25 @ x/c = 0.325
Chord line
Lower surface
Trailing Edge (TE)
Upper surface
Leading Edge (LE)
Design Process 11

Another motive for choosing this airfoil is that suction is not possible along the entire length of the
blade. The pressure difference needed for suction is not sufficient anymore from 60-70% of the blade
span, more on this in section 3.1.2. Hence the most critical location where boundary layer suction is
feasible, is around mid-span. The accompanied DU-91-W2-250 profile, halfway the blade length, is
selected from the blade lay-out in Table 3-2. Common Reynolds numbers for such mid-span airfoils in
the higher mega Watt range are around 8 million, thus for the calculations yields Re = 8e
6
.

3.1.2 Suction distribution

Boundary layer suction is possible due to the pressure difference between the outside and the inside
of the porous material on the airfoil. The pressure difference needed for suction can be obtained by
the natural effect of the centrifugal force, acting on the air inside the blade. Creating an opening at
the tip and leaving the root closed creates an under pressure in the blade. The losses due to the
Coriolis force are minimal and can therefore be neglected [11]. To compute the pressure on the
inside, the blade is modelled as a closed rotating duct. At the position x/c = 0.7 along the chord of the
airfoil the pressure coefficient on the outside has an estimated average value of C
P
-0.7. With
known data of the reference turbine and the formulas in appendix H [1], the inside and outside
pressure can be plotted, see Figure 3-2.

Figure 3-2: Pressure along the length of the blade [1]

Figure 3-2 shows that suction is not possible along the whole blade, inside the blade a greater
negative pressure is needed to let the air flow through the porous material. Around R = 46m the
inside pressure is less negative than the outside pressure and air is blown out if the porous material
still is applied. Furthermore to overcome the time variant pressure fluctuations on the outside there
should be at least a 500Pa pressure difference at all times. Because of this safety margin, blowing out
air instead of suction due to pressure fluctuations will not be possible. The amount of sucked air can
be regulated by applying different porous materials and thicknesses. It has to be noted here that the
amount of suction applied is in reality not constant over the sucked area, this is because the outside
pressure will vary along the blade as well as along the suction area in chord wise direction.
12 Design Process


As mentioned before, suction is not feasible along the entire length of the blade, the same applies for
the chord wise position of the airfoil. To keep the structural integrity of the blade intact, only the last
30% of the airfoils chord can be used for suction of the boundary layer. This fact was confirmed after
several conversations with experts from the wind energy industry. Because of the small thickness at
the trailing edge, it is questionable if suction is possible over the last 5% of the chord. Therefore,
during the design process, suction will be applied from x/c = 0.7 to x/c = 0.95. After a new airfoil is
designed, the effect of shortening this suction length will be investigated, see section 5.1.1.

Figure 3-3: Suction area on an example profile

Figure 3-3 illustrates the position and the length of suction area described above. The complete
volume inside the airfoil beneath the suction area is used to accommodate the suction duct. The
shape of the suction distribution along the upper surface is shown in Figure 3-4, along the suction
area the distribution is formed as a block. This base suction (v/U = -0.001) can easily be imported and
scaled to larger suction velocities by RFOIL. RFOIL is a successor of XFOIL and is described in more
detail in section 3.2. The suction velocity plotted in Figure 3-4 is defined as the velocity of the sucked
air perpendicular to the airfoil (v) divided by the relative wind velocity at the blade (U). From results
of earlier studies the maximum suction velocity possible was already determined around v/U = -0.003
[1].

0 0.1 0.2 0.3 0.4 0.5 0.6 0.7 0.8 0.9 1
-0.25
-0.2
-0.15
-0.1
-0.05
0
0.05
0.1
0.15
0.2
0.25
x/c
y/c

Suction Area/Length
Suction Duct
Design Process 13


Figure 3-4: Suction velocity (v/U) vs chord wise position (x/c)

3.2 RFOIL-suc

The required polars for the clean and soiled conditions are produced by RFOIL, which originates from
XFOIL. XFOIL is an inviscid linear-vorticity 2-D panel method (Figure 3-5) with a Karman-Tsien
compressibility correction, source distributions superimposed on the airfoil and wake permit
modelling of viscous layer influence on the potential flow. Both laminar and turbulent layers are
treated, with an e
9
-type amplification formulation determining the transition point [5]. Boundary
layer suction was already available in XFOIL at the Delft University of Technology and has now also
been implemented in RFOIL. RFOIL is a modified version of XFOIL with an improved prediction
around the maximum lift coefficient and capabilities of predicting the effects of rotation on airfoil
characteristics. These rotational effects scale with the local solidity (c/r), which is multiplied with a
factor of 2/3 before used as input for RFOIL. The local solidity was multiplied by this factor to match
the calculated results with the measurements [17]. RFOIL considerations are always a bit too
optimistic, resulting in a lower drag and a slightly higher (maximum) lift coefficient than in reality,
this is caused by underestimation of the boundary layer thickness [19].

Figure 3-5: Airfoil and wake panelling with vorticity () and source distributions (o), with TE detail [6]
0 0.1 0.2 0.3 0.4 0.5 0.6 0.7 0.8 0.9 1
-1
-0.9
-0.8
-0.7
-0.6
-0.5
-0.4
-0.3
-0.2
-0.1
0
x 10
-3
x/c
v/U

Basic suction shape
14 Design Process


The advantage of a program like RFOIL for the design process lies in the fact that it can be automated
with help of script files. Script files are useful for command line-input programs which need the same
or almost similar input for many times. The commands for RFOIL of one profile are programmed in a
script file, and with help of looping any number of calculated profiles can now automated. The Visual
Basic Script (VBS) language developed by Microsoft is used for creating the script files, for more
information the reader is referred to the VBS internet site [13].
A disadvantage of the suction module in RFOIL is that the viscous boundary layer formulations
cannot handle a shape factor smaller than one. This happens when too much suction is applied,
especially at low angles of attack the suction causes the shape factor of the boundary layer to fall
below one and RFOIL-suc does not converges. However, in reality this is not possible, it means that
the suction prevents the build up of any more boundary layer and maximum profit of boundary layer
suction is reached.

3.3 Profile field

The base DU-91-W2-250 airfoil is altered in two different ways. First the position of the thickest point
is moved backwards step by step to ensure longer flow attachment, see section 2.3.2. XFOIL moves
the thickest point of the base airfoil (x/c = 0.325) backwards in small steps to the end point at x/c =
0.525, hereby not changing the camber of the airfoil. This end point is chosen as maximum to ensure
the new airfoils are still usable, the S-shape of the original airfoil deforms the shape contours.
Moving the thickest point too far backwards would give useless airfoils with too large surface
gradients at the trailing edge causing flow separation.
As a second step the thickness is gradually increased from 25% to 40% thickness. As explained in
section 2.1.3 the reason for this is clear, increasing the structural efficiency by increasing thickness of
the airfoil blade. The two modifications of the original airfoil produces a field of one hundred airfoils
with different thicknesses and shapes. This profile field is shown in Figure 3-6 where the airfoils are
labelled as 1
st
number-2
nd
number.AIR. The 1
st
number represents the position of the thickest point,
with X = 1 being the original thickness point at x/c = 0.325 and X = 10 at x/c = 0.525. The second
number denotes the thickness of the airfoil, with Y = 1 again the original thickness of 25% and Y =10
the maximum thickness of 40%. On the horizontal axis the thickness is moved backward and
vertically the thickness is increased, the four corner points of the created profile field are shown with
the original airfoil in blue:
- 1-1.air: t/c = 0.25 at x/c = 0.325
- 1-10.air: t/c = 0.4 at x/c = 0.325
- 10-1.air: t/c = 0.25 at x/c = 0.525
- 10-10.air: t/c = 0.4 at x/c = 0.525

Design Process 15


Figure 3-6: Profile field of new created airfoils

3.4 Selection criteria

The goal of the design process is to develop a thicker airfoil with equal or better aerodynamic
properties. The most important parameter for an airfoil is the lift-to-drag ratio, a high lift-to-drag
ratio is needed for a high power coefficient to maximize energy yield. To ensure the same power
output the lift-to-drag ratio of the new airfoil cannot be reduced for the clean as well as the soiled
case. The lift coefficient at which the lift-to-drag ratio is at its maximum (L/D
max
) is the design lift
coefficient (C
L,design
), which determines then the chord length according to required lift.
The basic assumption is that the new airfoil can easily be inserted in the original model, meaning that
the chord length and thus the design lift cannot differ too much. Furthermore a margin between the
design lift with respect to the maximum lift coefficient (C
L, max
) is needed, usually a difference of C
L
=
0.2 is sufficient. Also the maximum lift coefficient ought to be restrained to maximal its original
value, this is for limiting aerodynamic (static) loads on the blade. The above mentioned
characteristics are shown in Figure 3-7 and here again summarized:
- Equal or better L/D
max

- Similar C
L,design

- Equal or lower C
L, max

16 Design Process


Figure 3-7: Polar curves for DU-91-W2-250 (Re = 8e
6
and c/r = 0.09)

3.5 Flow diagram

The general flowchart of the design process is given in Figure 3-8, the first basics for the start of the
design process were already mentioned. With the original DU-91-W2-250 profile a 10x10 field of
coordinate files is created, for an example profile coordinate file see appendix A.1. For each
coordinate file a matching suction distribution file is needed else RFOIL is not able to apply the
correct suction. RFOIL creates for an airfoil an unique set of points at which the suction velocity can
be defined. If for an airfoil the suction is not defined at those specific points, the applied suction
distribution is different from the intended distribution. To overcome this problem for each airfoil a
base suction distribution is created with the script file given in appendix B.2. The desired suction
velocity at the unique points are then written to the final suction files, thus ensuring the same base
suction distribution for each profile as shown in Figure 3-4. The MATLAB file shown in appendix C.1 is
used for this.

-10 -5 0 5 10 15 20
-1
-0.5
0
0.5
1
1.5
2

X: 13.5
Y: 1.663
C
L
- o curve
o
C
L
Clean configuration
Soiled configuration
-100 -50 0 50 100 150 200
-1
-0.5
0
0.5
1
1.5
2

X: 114.6
Y: 1.39
C
L
C
L
/C
D
C
L
- C
L
/C
D
X: 160.5
Y: 1.03
C
L
/C
D-max,clean
C
L
/C
D-max,soiled
C
L,design,clean
C
L,design,soiled
C
L,dif,soiled
C
L,max
C
L,dif,clean
Design Process 17


Figure 3-8: General flowchart design process

The required polar files for each airfoil, see appendix A.3, are produced by RFOIL-suc, again this
process is automated by a script file, see appendix B.3. The script file opens RFOIL-suc, loads the
airfoil, the required inputs for RFOIL-suc are given, the script file waits for RFOIL-suc to calculate the
polar and closes the program to start the process all over again for the next airfoil. Within this script
file the user can change the input according to the requirements:
- The Reynolds number for the viscous flow is set to Re = 8e
6

- When soiled condition are modelled, the boundary layer is tripped on the upper surface at
5% from the leading edge, thus x/c = 0.05
- If rotational effects are taken into account the local solidity (including a factor 2/3) is c/r =
0.09
- The polar is calculated from an angle of attack of = -10 degrees with steps of a half degree
to = 20 degrees

To gain insight in all these polar files, the data will be sorted and filtered with help of MATLAB
(appendix C.2). First MATLAB reads in the data from the polar files and stores only the needed
columns of variables (, C
L
and C
D
) up to C
L,max
. For clarity the polars of the different suction velocities
for each airfoil are combined to one polar with increasing suction. As mentioned before, if too much
18 Design Process

suction is applied RFOIL-suc will not converge. By combining the suction velocities step by step, each
suction velocity will have a complete polar without gaps. This means that the program stores only
one entry, the largest suction velocity, for each angle of attack.
With these filtered results the necessary data of each airfoil and for every suction velocity can be
calculated and stored in matrices. For example one matrix (10 by 10) contains the maximum lift-to-
drag ratio of all 100 airfoils for one suction velocity. Now the selection criteria like lift-to-drag ratio,
maximum lift coefficient and many more, can easily be compared for each case (clean, soiled or
different suction velocity). As an example the data for the maximum lift-to-drag ratio of the whole
profile field of 100 airfoils without suction applied is given in appendix C.3 and also graphically
illustrated below in Figure 3-9. The area under the coloured surface represents the profile field, with
on one axis the increasing thickness (from t/c = 0.25 to t/c = 0.4) and on the other axis the chord wise
position of the thickest point. For this example the surface itself consist of the 100 entries (C
L
/C
D-max
)
of the profile field. For the two points where the maximum lift-to-drag ratio is zero, RFOIL-suc could
not resolve the given airfoils.

Figure 3-9: C
L
/C
D-max
for v/U = 0 and clean configuration

The end result of this design tool is given in Figure 3-10, an overview of all airfoils which satisfy given
selection criteria, for each suction velocity an individual overview is generated. The right part of
Figure 3-10 gives a numerical listing of the available airfoils, the accompanying thickness and its
position is shown in the left part. The applied selection criteria are always given in the legend.

Design Process 19


Figure 3-10: Candidate airfoils for v/U = 0 (clean)

Usually the selection consist of checking if the maximum lift-to-drag ratio is big enough and whether
there is a sufficient safety margin between the design lift coefficient and the maximum lift
coefficient. As can be seen in Figure 3-10 also an alternative selection criteria can be used instead of
the before mentioned. The lift-to-drag ratio of the new airfoils is checked at the alternative lift
coefficient (C
L,alt
), this C
L,alt
is the lift coefficient with at least an 0.2 difference from the maximum lift
coefficient. When the lift-to-drag ratio at the alternative lift coefficient of a new airfoil is bigger than
the original, the airfoil is indicated as possible solution. The definition of this alternative approach
and an example of accompanying polars is plotted in Figure 3-11 and Figure 3-12.
Figure 3-11 shows the considerable larger lift-to-drag ratio at the alternative lift coefficient of the
new airfoil (1-5.air). From Figure 3-12 it can be seen that indeed at the maximum lift-to-drag ratio of
the original airfoil, the new airfoil performs worse. However, for a reasonable alpha range (from 5
to 10 degrees) the lift-to-drag ratio of the new airfoil is substantially larger. Assuming the same
control strategy for both airfoils, a wind turbine equipped with the new airfoil would perform better
on this alpha range due to the higher lift-to-drag ratio. Important at this point is to take into account
the variation of the angle of attack during normal operation cycles.
The variation of this angle of attack for different wind velocities is given in Table 3-3, with the mean
angle of attack as well as the standard variation around this mean and the extremes. These values
were computed with BLADED for the reference model around mid-span, with normal wind shear and
turbulence conditions. For example at the rated wind speed, V
wind
= 11.4 m/s, the average angle of
attack is 4.6 degrees. At this angle of attack the new airfoil has a smaller lift-to-drag ratio than the
original airfoil, therefore the performance would be less and selecting this airfoil would be critical. It
is therefore important to look for which alpha range the new airfoils perform better, an overall larger
lift-to-drag ratio would of course be the ideal case.

0.325 0.375 0.425 0.475 0.525
0.25
0.275
0.3
0.325
0.35
0.375
0.4
Possible profiles (X-Y.air) with maximum thickness (t/c
max
) and position (x/c) for v/U = 0.000
x/c
t/c

1-1.air: t/c=0.25 @ x/c=0.325
1-10.air: t/c=0.4 @ x/c=0.325
10-1.air: t/c=0.25 @ x/c=0.525
10-10.air: t/c=0.4 @ x/c=0.525
Cl/Cd
max
; Cl
dif
(stall-design)
Cl/Cd
alt
;
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
0
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
X
Y
20 Design Process


Figure 3-11: Definition of alternative selection criteria

Figure 3-12: Polar examples of 1-5.air (Re = 8e
6
, c/r = 0.09 and clean)

Table 3-3: Variation of angle of attack with the wind velocity for the reference wind turbine (BLADED)
V
wind
[m/s] 8.0 11.4 18.0
Mean *deg] 3.8 4.6 2.9
Maximum *deg] 9.3 10.0 10.1
Minimum *deg] -1.7 -0.8 -5.9
Standard deviation [deg] 1.8 1.9 2.3
0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16 18 20
0.4
0.6
0.8
1
1.2
1.4
1.6
1.8
2
C
L
- o curve
o
C
L

DU-91-W2-250
1-5.air
0 20 40 60 80 100 120 140 160 180 200
0.4
0.6
0.8
1
1.2
1.4
1.6
1.8
2

X: 188
Y: 1.487
C
L
- C
L
/C
D
C
L
C
L
/C
D
X: 187.9
Y: 1.428
X: 161.2
Y: 1.03
C
L,max
C
L,alt
AC
L
> 0.2
C
L
/C
D-max,alt
AC
L
= C
L,dif
< 0.2
0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16 18 20
0.4
0.6
0.8
1
1.2
1.4
1.6
1.8
2
o
C
L
0 20 40 60 80 100 120 140 160 180 200
0.4
0.6
0.8
1
1.2
1.4
1.6
1.8
2
C
L
C
L
/C
D
0 0.02 0.04 0.06 0.08 0.1 0.12 0.14
0.4
0.6
0.8
1
1.2
1.4
1.6
1.8
2
C
D
C
L

DU-91-W2-250
1-5.air
0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16 18 20
0
50
100
150
200
o
C
L
/C
D
Design Process 21

3.6 Results from the profile field

Figure 3-18 until Figure 3-25 shown at the end of this section give a good overview of what happens
to the maximum lift-to-drag ratio across the profile field while increasing the suction velocity. The
thickness of an airfoil is found on the vertical axis, the position of the thickest point is represented by
the horizontal axis and the colour bar indicates the magnitude of the lift-to-drag ratio. The end result
of this design tool is given from Figure 3-26 to Figure 3-33, an overview of all airfoils which satisfy
given selection criteria, below follows an explanation of the results.
For the clean configurations shown in Figure 3-18 to Figure 3-21, increasing the thickness has a
positive effect on the maximum lift-to-drag ratio. The design lift coefficient increases with increasing
thickness leading to a higher L/D, but also the drag increases causing the lift-to-drag ratio to
decrease. The increase of maximum lift-to-drag ratio is mainly due to the design lift coefficient, by
increasing the thickness also the curvature of the airfoil is increased, and the lift is directly related to
the airfoils curvature. Moving the thickest point backwards and thereby decreasing the curvature of
the airfoil, as seen from the leading edge, decreases the maximum lift coefficient considerable.
Moreover by moving the thickest point backwards, the adverse pressure gradient after the negative
pressure peak is increased and can cause flow separation. These effects, increasing the thickness and
moving the thickest point backwards, on the design lift are shown in Figure 3-13 below.

Figure 3-13: C
L,max
and C
L,design
for clean conditions and v/U = 0

The drag grows with increasing thickness, but by moving the thickest point backwards the flow
remains longer attached to the airfoil and thus reducing the drag. This drag reduction was more
prominent for thinner airfoils in the lower part of the lift-to-drag ratio fields in Figure 3-18 up to
Figure 3-21, explaining the increase of the maximum lift-to-drag ratio in the lower right part of the
profile field. Placing the thickest point further backwards the lift is decreased and thus lowering L/D.
However, the drag is most of the time lower when moving the thickest point backwards, increasing
L/D again. For the more extreme airfoils, large thicknesses and more backwards, RFOIL could not
always produce polars with enough data. Therefore only a few data points were available to calculate
the lift-to-drag ratio, particular with small suction velocities the upper right part of the fields are
questionable.
22 Design Process

Figure 3-22 to Figure 3-25 at the end of this section shows the effect of increasing the thickness for
the soiled case, the lift-to-drag ratio decreases drastically. The increased thickness causes the
pressure gradients to rise over the aft part of the airfoil upper surface. These steep pressure
gradients combined with leading edge contamination may lead to early turbulent separation,
reducing the lift coefficient (see Figure 3-14 below) and thus the lift-to-drag ratio [18]. Moving the
thickest point backwards has the same effect as with the clean configurations. The lift coefficient is
decreased and also the drag is somewhat lower. However, when enough suction is applied this drag
reduction is more apparent. Again this effect is more clear for the thinner airfoils, increasing the
maximum lift-to-drag ratio in the lower right regime of the profile field, see Figure 3-22 to Figure
3-25.

Figure 3-14: C
L,max
and C
L,design
for soiled conditions and v/U = 0

The end result of the design tool is shown from Figure 3-26 to Figure 3-33 at the end of this section,
the figures give all the candidate airfoils for each suction velocity individual. For every suction
velocity the tool gives all the available airfoils. As mentioned before the lift-to-drag ratio at the
design lift coefficient should be greater than the original, this selection criteria is denoted as C
L
/C
D,max
.
Also a sufficient margin is needed between the design lift, C
L,design
, and the maximum lift coefficient
C
L,max
, this margin is shown as C
L, diff
in the legend with selection criteria. Another selection method
explained in section 3.4 can be used instead, this is mentioned as C
L,alt
. In the profile fields a
distinction is made between the two selection methods, it immediately becomes clear that with the
alternative selection criteria more airfoils become available.
As expected, for the clean conditions more candidate airfoils are available than for the soiled
conditions. The figures with the maximum lift-to-drag ratio already shown much better performance
for the clean conditions. From Figure 3-26 to Figure 3-29 the possible airfoils for the clean conditions
are shown, even some of the thickest airfoils satisfy the selection criteria, the maximum lift
coefficient was here added as an extra condition. This C
L,max
in the legend states that the maximum
lift coefficient of a new possible airfoil should be lower than the original airfoil, ensuring equal or
lower static operating loads (c*C
L,max
) with similar chord length. The clean field plots show that by
increasing the suction velocity more thicker airfoils become available. Because of the extra condition
for the maximum lift coefficient some airfoils disappear from the profile field with increasing suction
velocity. However, profiles found for a lower suction velocity still have a higher lift-to-drag ratio, now
the maximum lift coefficient rises above the original.
Design Process 23

Figure 3-30 illustrates the effect of contamination on the blade for wind turbines and thus the
potential for boundary layer suction for the wind energy industry. The original DU-91-W2-250 airfoil
was designed for low roughness sensitivity leading to a reduced upper surface, also the position of
the thickest point was optimized. Because of this, increasing the thickness and moving the thickest
point will seriously affect the performance of the airfoils for the soiled case, also shown in Figure
3-22 for the lift-to-drag ratio. Therefore, the only acceptable airfoil without suction according to the
selection criteria, is the original airfoil. By increasing the suction more candidate airfoil become
available, illustrated by Figure 3-30 to Figure 3-33. Comparing the clean and soiled cases it is needless
to state that the selection of a new airfoil is more critical for the soiled conditions, most of the airfoils
found for the soiled case will satisfy the same criteria for the clean conditions.
Checking the profile field of the soiled conditions for the maximum suction velocity possible, Figure
3-33, reveals the thickest airfoils possible with use of suction. The three thickest airfoils are now
chosen for further investigation:
- The 1-4.air with a thickness of t/c = 0.300 at its original position of x/c = 0.326,
- The 2-4.air with a thickness of t/c = 0.300 at a more backward position of x/c = 0.346 and
- The 1-5.air with a thickness of t/c =0.316 at its original position of x/c = 0.326.

These selected airfoils are plotted below in Figure 3-15 together with the original DU-92-W2-250
(here 1-1.air). The position of the thickest point of 1-5.air and 1-4.air is similar as that of the
original airfoil (x/c = 0.326), as can be seen the purple 1-5.air is slightly thicker than the red 1-4.air.
The green 2-4.air and the red 1-4.air have the same thickness (t/c = 0.300), only the thickest point
for the green 2-4.air airfoil is more backwards (x/c =0.346). The polars of these airfoils are shown in
Figure 3-16 and Figure 3-17.

Figure 3-15: Result airfoils with thickness and position
0.1 0.2 0.3 0.4 0.5 0.6 0.7 0.8 0.9 1
-0.25
-0.2
-0.15
-0.1
-0.05
0
0.05
0.1
0.15
0.2
0.25
x/c
y/c

1-4.air: t/c = 0.300 @ x/c = 0.326
2-4.air: t/c = 0.300 @ x/c = 0.346
1-5.air: t/c = 0.316 @ x/c = 0.326
1-1.air: t/c = 0.250 @ x/c = 0.326
24 Design Process

For the soiled case the performance is quite acceptable, over the operational range of the angle of
attack (see Table 3-3) the lift-to-drag ratio is higher. However, for higher angles of attack the lift-to-
drag ratio of the candidate airfoils drops below the original. Also due to the sharp peak in the lift
curves, the stall is more severe than the build in smooth stall control of the original airfoil. Figure
3-17 also shows the negative effect on the performance due to increasing the thickness (from 1-
4.air to 1-5.air) and placing the thickest point further backwards (from 1-4.air to 2-4.air) for the
soiled conditions. For the clean case this is not as apparent, increasing the thickness even improves
the performance of the airfoil (from 1-4.air to 1-5.air), see Figure 3-16.

Figure 3-16: Polars of the selected airfoils with v/U = 0.003 (clean; Re = 8e
6
; c/r = 0.09)

Figure 3-17: Polars of the selected airfoils with v/U = 0.003 (soiled; Re = 8e
6
; c/r = 0.09)
0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16 18 20
0
0.5
1
1.5
2
o
C
L
0 50 100 150 200 250
0
0.5
1
1.5
2
C
L
C
L
/C
D
0 0.02 0.04 0.06 0.08 0.1 0.12 0.14
0
0.5
1
1.5
2
C
D
C
L

DU-91-W2-250
1-4.air (clean)
2-4.air (clean)
1-5.air (clean)
0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16 18 20
0
50
100
150
200
250
o
C
L
/C
D
0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16 18 20
0
0.5
1
1.5
2
o
C
L
0 50 100 150 200 250
0
0.5
1
1.5
2
C
L
C
L
/C
D
0 0.02 0.04 0.06 0.08 0.1 0.12 0.14
0
0.5
1
1.5
2
C
D
C
L

DU-91-W2-250
1-4.air (soiled)
2-4.air (soiled)
1-5.air (soiled)
0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16 18 20
0
50
100
150
200
250
o
C
L
/C
D
Design Process 25

Profile fields with maximum lift-to-drag ratio:

Figure 3-18: C
L
/C
D-max
for v/U = 0, clean configuration and Re = 8e
6

Figure 3-19: C
L
/C
D-max
6

26 Design Process


Figure 3-20: C
L
/C
D-max
6

Figure 3-21: C
L
/C
D-max
6

Design Process 27


Figure 3-22: C
L
/C
D-max
for v/U = 0, soiled conditions and Re = 8e
6

Figure 3-23: C
L
/C
D-max
6

28 Design Process


Figure 3-24: C
L
/C
D-max
6

Figure 3-25: C
L
/C
D-max
6

Design Process 29

Profile fields with candidate airfoils:

Figure 3-26: Candidate airfoils for v/U = 0 (clean)

Figure 3-27: Candidate airfoils for v/U = 0.001 (clean)

0.325 0.375 0.425 0.475 0.525
0.25
0.275
0.3
0.325
0.35
0.375
0.4
max
x/c
t/c

1-1.air: t/c=0.25 @ x/c=0.325
1-10.air: t/c=0.4 @ x/c=0.325
10-1.air: t/c=0.25 @ x/c=0.525
10-10.air: t/c=0.4 @ x/c=0.525
Cl/Cd
max
; Cl
dif
(stall-design); Cl
max
Cl/Cd
alt
; Cl
max 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
0
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
X
Y
0.325 0.375 0.425 0.475 0.525
0.25
0.275
0.3
0.325
0.35
0.375
0.4
max
x/c
t/c

1-1.air: t/c=0.25 @ x/c=0.325
1-10.air: t/c=0.4 @ x/c=0.325
10-1.air: t/c=0.25 @ x/c=0.525
10-10.air: t/c=0.4 @ x/c=0.525
Cl/Cd
max
; Cl
dif
(stall-design); Cl
max
Cl/Cd
alt
; Cl
max 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
0
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
X
Y
30 Design Process




0.325 0.375 0.425 0.475 0.525
0.25
0.275
0.3
0.325
0.35
0.375
0.4
max
x/c
t/c

1-1.air: t/c=0.25 @ x/c=0.325
1-10.air: t/c=0.4 @ x/c=0.325
10-1.air: t/c=0.25 @ x/c=0.525
10-10.air: t/c=0.4 @ x/c=0.525
Cl/Cd
max
; Cl
dif
(stall-design); Cl
max
Cl/Cd
alt
; Cl
max 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
0
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
X
Y
0.325 0.375 0.425 0.475 0.525
0.25
0.275
0.3
0.325
0.35
0.375
0.4
max
x/c
t/c

1-1.air: t/c=0.25 @ x/c=0.325
1-10.air: t/c=0.4 @ x/c=0.325
10-1.air: t/c=0.25 @ x/c=0.525
10-10.air: t/c=0.4 @ x/c=0.525
Cl/Cd
max
; Cl
dif
(stall-design); Cl
max
Cl/Cd
alt
; Cl
max 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
0
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
X
Y
Design Process 31


Figure 3-30: Candidate airfoils for v/U = 0 (soiled)

Figure 3-31: Candidate airfoils for v/U = 0.001 (soiled)

0.325 0.375 0.425 0.475 0.525
0.25
0.275
0.3
0.325
0.35
0.375
0.4
max
x/c
t/c

1-1.air: t/c=0.25 @ x/c=0.325
1-10.air: t/c=0.4 @ x/c=0.325
10-1.air: t/c=0.25 @ x/c=0.525
10-10.air: t/c=0.4 @ x/c=0.525
Cl/Cd
max
; Cl
dif
(stall-design)
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
0
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
X
Y
0.325 0.375 0.425 0.475 0.525
0.25
0.275
0.3
0.325
0.35
0.375
0.4
max
x/c
t/c

1-1.air: t/c=0.25 @ x/c=0.325
1-10.air: t/c=0.4 @ x/c=0.325
10-1.air: t/c=0.25 @ x/c=0.525
10-10.air: t/c=0.4 @ x/c=0.525
Cl/Cd
max
; Cl
dif
(stall-design)
Cl/Cd
alt
;
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
0
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
X
Y
32 Design Process




0.325 0.375 0.425 0.475 0.525
0.25
0.275
0.3
0.325
0.35
0.375
0.4
max
x/c
t/c

1-1.air: t/c=0.25 @ x/c=0.325
1-10.air: t/c=0.4 @ x/c=0.325
10-1.air: t/c=0.25 @ x/c=0.525
10-10.air: t/c=0.4 @ x/c=0.525
Cl/Cd
max
; Cl
dif
(stall-design)
Cl/Cd
alt
;
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
0
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
X
Y
0.325 0.375 0.425 0.475 0.525
0.25
0.275
0.3
0.325
0.35
0.375
0.4
max
x/c
t/c

1-1.air: t/c=0.25 @ x/c=0.325
1-10.air: t/c=0.4 @ x/c=0.325
10-1.air: t/c=0.25 @ x/c=0.525
10-10.air: t/c=0.4 @ x/c=0.525
Cl/Cd
max
; Cl
dif
(stall-design)
Cl/Cd
alt
;
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
0
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
X
Y
Design Process 33

3.7 Modify camber

Up to now the camber of the airfoil remained unchanged, however the camber has a substantial
effect on the performance of the airfoils. There are numerous ways of defining and changing the
camber of an airfoil, for this report the camber line is defined as a maximum camber value at a
position along the chord of the airfoil. The camber of the original DU-91-W2-250 airfoil is then 0.027
at x/c = 0.78 and for each airfoil of the profile field the camber has this same value. In Figure 3-34 an
example camber distribution is plotted by XFOIL, the lower graph shows the actual airfoil and the
upper graph shows the symmetrical version of the airfoil in red and the camber as a purple line.

Figure 3-34: Camber distribution for example profile

The camber is now changed by moving and scaling the camber point to determine the effect of
altering the camber. This procedure is done for all three candidate airfoils from the previous section.
Here the purpose of camber variation is to fine-tune the airfoils so they will perform better. Better
performance can mean a higher lift-to-drag ratio, smoother stall after the maximum lift coefficient,
lowering the maximum lift coefficient to reduce static operation loads and lengthening the alpha
34 Design Process

range where the lift-to-drag ratio is larger than the original. Evaluation and selection of the airfoils is
now done by checking and comparing the individual polars.
The effect of the camber modifications is similar for each of the candidate airfoils, the outcome of
moving the camber point is shown for the 1-4.air airfoil in Figure 3-35. The original airfoil is of
course without suction and for the new airfoil the suction velocity is v/U = 0.003. For the original
airfoil the camber point lies at x/c = 0.78, moving this point forward lowers the C
L,max
, the C
L
- curve
is slightly effected and the overall lift-to-drag ratio is decreased. Moreover the range of angle of
attack where the lift-to-drag ratio is greater than the original is reduced. Placing the camber point
more backwards has the opposite effect, thus improving performance but with an increase of the
maximum lift coefficient and thus increasing static operational loads.

Figure 3-35: Effect of moving the camber point for v/U = 0.003 (soiled; Re = 8e
6
; c/r = 0.09)

Figure 3-36 illustrates the effect of scaling the camber of an airfoil, as expected not only the
maximum lift coefficient is increased the whole lift curve moves upwards. Furthermore the range
where the lift-to-drag ratio is improved increases due to scaling of the camber value. However, the
lift coefficient is also greatly affected by moving the C
L
- curve, thus scaling the camber value has to
be done with great care.

0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16 18 20
0
0.5
1
1.5
2
o
C
L
0 50 100 150 200 250
0
0.5
1
1.5
2
C
L
C
L
/C
D
0 0.02 0.04 0.06 0.08 0.1 0.12 0.14
0
0.5
1
1.5
2
C
D
C
L

DU-91-W2-250
1-4.air: x/c = 0.66 scale = 100%
1-4.air: x/c = 0.70 scale = 100%
1-4.air: x/c = 0.74 scale = 100%
1-4.air: x/c = 0.78 scale = 100%
1-4.air: x/c = 0.82 scale = 100%
0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16 18 20
0
50
100
150
200
250
o
C
L
/C
D
Design Process 35


Figure 3-36: Effect of up scaling the camber value for v/U = 0.003 (soiled; Re = 8e
6
; c/r = 0.09)

During the design process of altering the camber of the airfoil, the 2-4.air airfoil was quickly
discarded and the choice was between the 1-4.air and the thicker 1-5.air airfoil. This because the
effect of the camber changes was similar for the three airfoils and there the 1-4.air performed
better than the 2-4.air and both have equal thicknesses. As seen in Figure 3-16 and Figure 3-17 the
lift-to-drag ratio in general of the 1-4.air is higher than that of the 2-4.air and the range where it
performs better than the original DU-91-W2-250 is also larger. Both are critical selection criteria for
choosing the new airfoil.
After the iterative design process of changing the camber of the candidate airfoils the end result for
the two remaining candidate airfoils is plotted in Figure 3-37 and Figure 3-38. As mentioned before,
altering the camber is done by scaling the camber value and moving its position along the chord.
During this process the above mentioned effects of both modifications were taken into account. As
can be seen from Figure 3-37 for the soiled case, the camber changes were more effective for the 1-
5.air than for the 1-4.air. The lift-to-drag ratio of the 1-5.air is improved, just as the range where it
is larger than the original DU-91-W2-250 airfoil. For the 1-4.air the lift-to-drag ratio is sometimes
even lower than without camber changes, however it is larger than the original for a greater range of
angles of attack, although it is just one degree. For the clean conditions shown in Figure 3-38, the
camber alterations did not produce major effects, only the C
L,max
of the 1-5.air is slightly larger.
Important for choosing the final airfoil is the performance within the normal operating range of
angles of attack. These are listed in Table 3-3 with a maximum of around 10 degrees, -5 degrees for a
minimum and an average angle of attack between 3 and 5 degrees with a standard deviation around
2 degrees. The overall performance of the 1-4.air is better than that of the 1-5.air, for the soiled
conditions the lift-to-drag ratio is larger and the drop-off after the maximum lift coefficient is smaller
thus smoother stall conditions for the 1-4.air. Furthermore the angle of attack range with improved
lift-to-drag ratio is larger for the 1-4.air. The drop-off of the lift-to-drag ratio for the 1-5.air is just
0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16 18 20
0
0.5
1
1.5
2
o
C
L
0 50 100 150 200 250
0
0.5
1
1.5
2
C
L
C
L
/C
D
0 0.02 0.04 0.06 0.08 0.1 0.12 0.14
0
0.5
1
1.5
2
2.5
C
D
C
L

DU-91-W2-250
1-5: x/c = 0.78 scale = 100%
1-5: x/c = 0.78 scale = 150%
1-5: x/c = 0.78 scale = 200%
0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16 18 20
0
50
100
150
200
250
o
C
L
/C
D
36 Design Process

after the maximum normal operational angle of attack of 10 degrees, making it slightly critical. For
the clean conditions, Figure 3-38, the lift-to-drag ratio of the 1-5.air is somewhat better than the 1-
4.air. However, the maximum lift coefficient of the 1-5.air is slightly higher and thus increasing
static operational loads. Although the 1-5.air is somewhat thicker, the 1-4.airis chosen as the final
airfoil because of before mentioned properties. The better performance over the normal range of
angles of attack for the soiled case is one of the decisive factors for taking the 1-4.air airfoil.

Figure 3-37: Result of camber modification for v/U = 0.003 (soiled; Re = 8e
6
; c/r = 0.09)

Figure 3-38: Result of camber modification for v/U = 0.003 (clean; Re = 8e
6
; c/r = 0.09)
-10 -5 0 5 10 15 20
-1
-0.5
0
0.5
1
1.5
2
o
C
L
-100 -50 0 50 100 150 200 250
-1
-0.5
0
0.5
1
1.5
2
C
L
C
L
/C
D
0 0.02 0.04 0.06 0.08 0.1 0.12 0.14
-1
-0.5
0
0.5
1
1.5
2
C
D
C
L

DU-91-W2-250
1-4.air
1-4.air: x/c = 82 scale = 90%
1-5.air
1-5.air: x/c = 82 scale = 100%
-10 -5 0 5 10 15 20
-100
-50
0
50
100
150
200
250
o
C
L
/C
D
-10 -5 0 5 10 15 20
-1
0
1
2
o
C
L
-100 -50 0 50 100 150 200 250
-1
0
1
2
C
L
C
L
/C
D
0 0.02 0.04 0.06 0.08 0.1 0.12 0.14
-1
0
1
2
C
D
C
L

DU-91-W2-250
1-4.air
1-4.air: x/c = 82 scale = 90%
1-5.air
1-5.air: x/c = 82 scale = 100%
-10 -5 0 5 10 15 20
-100
0
100
200
o
C
L
/C
D
Design Process 37

3.8 Wind tunnel adjustments

The design of a new airfoil is just one part the complete process of boundary layer suction
development for a wind turbine. As a next step the airfoil should be tested in the wind tunnel,
particularly to validate the applied design tools like RFOIL-suc. During the preparation by Actiflow for
these tests and after a close investigation of the airfoil, it became clear that some alterations were
necessary. Straightening the rear part of the upper surface is just a minor change which was applied,
because this part was already nearly straight for the last 40%. The effect of this is thus negligible, also
because suction is applied over the most part of the rear upper surface. The biggest advantage of a
straight rear upper surface is the simplicity for manufacturing. Moreover the suction is employed
over this part of the airfoil making the use of straight sheets possible instead of curved sheets.

Figure 3-39: Airfoil growth during the design process

Another modification to the airfoils is done by rotating the lower surface of the airfoil. Fixing the
nose of the airfoil and rotating the lower part creates a larger trailing edge, much like truncated
airfoils. This larger trailing edge is needed to fit the measuring instruments for the wind tunnel tests
in the rear part of the airfoil. In Figure 3-39 the new airfoils with these modifications are plotted. The
final airfoil has thus a straight rear part of the upper surface and a rotated lower surface. This final
airfoil will from now be labelled as AF-0901, the Actiflow (AF) airfoil designed in 2009 (09) and the
first one (01) of that year. In Figure 3-40 and Figure 3-41 the final AF-0901 airfoil is compared with
the original DU-91-W2-250 and the end result of the camber modifications from section 3.7. Mainly
due to the rotation of the lower surface the lift-to-drag ratio is slightly reduced, the maximum lift
coefficient is increased, but the range of angles of attack with better lift-to-drag than the original DU-
91-W2-250 is increased.
0.1 0.2 0.3 0.4 0.5 0.6 0.7 0.8 0.9 1
-0.25
-0.2
-0.15
-0.1
-0.05
0
0.05
0.1
0.15
0.2
0.25
x/c
y/c

1-4.air: camber (x/c = 0.82 scale = 90%)
1-4.air: camber and straigth upper surface
1-4.air: camber, straigth upper surface and rotated lower surface
DU-91-W2-250
38 Design Process


Figure 3-40: Effect of wind tunnel modifications for v/U = 0.003 (clean; Re = 8e
6
; c/r = 0.09)

Figure 3-41: Effect of wind tunnel modifications for v/U = 0.003 (soiled; Re = 8e
6
; c/r = 0.09)

-10 -5 0 5 10 15 20
-1
-0.5
0
0.5
1
1.5
2
o
C
L
-100 -50 0 50 100 150 200 250
-1
-0.5
0
0.5
1
1.5
2
C
L
C
L
/C
D
0 0.02 0.04 0.06 0.08 0.1 0.12 0.14
-1
-0.5
0
0.5
1
1.5
2
C
D
C
L

DU-91-W2-250
1-4.air: x/c = 0.82 scale = 90%
AF-0901
-10 -5 0 5 10 15 20
-100
-50
0
50
100
150
200
250
o
C
L
/C
D
-10 -5 0 5 10 15 20
-1
-0.5
0
0.5
1
1.5
2
o
C
L
-100 -50 0 50 100 150
-1
-0.5
0
0.5
1
1.5
2
C
L
C
L
/C
D
0 0.02 0.04 0.06 0.08 0.1 0.12 0.14
-1
-0.5
0
0.5
1
1.5
2
C
D
C
L

DU-91-W2-250
1-4.air: x/c = 0.82 scale = 90%
AF-0901
-10 -5 0 5 10 15 20
-100
-50
0
50
100
150
200
250
o
C
L
/C
D
Structural benefits 39

4 Structural benefits

For the evaluation of the structural benefits of the newly designed airfoil, a structural 2-D
comparison is made between the old DU-91-W2-250 and the new AF-0901 airfoil. First a simple
beam theory with accurate XFOIL thin walled shell stiffness data is given to compare both airfoils. As
a second comparison, a detailed structural design from the reference wind turbine is implemented in
PreComp. The new thicker AF-0901 airfoil will then be optimized to match the original stiffness
requirements. In section 2.1.3 the airfoil is modelled as a simple beam and in section 4.1 as a thin
walled structure consisting of one material for comparison, thus without webs and spar caps.
However, in reality various materials with different properties are used for every sandwich section of
the layup. Therefore, in section 4.2 another more in depth structural analysis is made.

4.1 Thin walled shell structure

In section 2.1.3 the simple beam theory was used to show the advantage of increasing the thickness
of the blade. The airfoil was modelled as a simple beam, the flanges of the beam then represent the
spar caps, anything else was dismissed. The airfoil is now modelled as a thin walled structure, with a
material of thickness t along its contour line. When an airfoil is seen as a thin walled structure, XFOIL
can be used for a structural analysis. For such a thin walled profile XFOIL gives the moment if inertia
divided by this thickness (skin Ixx/t), see Figure 4-1.

Figure 4-1: Bending parameters from XFOIL


With the same reasoning as before equation (1.4) now becomes:

( )
( ) ( )
,
/ /
X X
X X
old new
M M
x y y y
I t t I t t
o
| | | |
= =
| |
| |

\ . \ .
(4.1)

Assuming again an equal bending moment and rearranging for the thickness ratio gives:

( )
( )
/
/
X
new old new
old X old
new
I t
t y
t I t y
= (4.2)

As said before the value of the moment of inertia divided by the thickness are provided by XFOIL.
Also the maximum value for y can be delivered by XFOIL (max Y-Yc), at this value of y the stresses are
at their maximum. With the data from XFOIL the thickness ratio now becomes:

2
2
1.504 10 0.1479
0.8286 ~ 0.83
2.208 10 0.1216
new
old
t
t
= =
(4.3)

Next the influence of the edgewise moment on the thickness ratio is investigated. Again from XFOIL
the exact data is extracted for the moments of inertia and distances. Still neglecting the normal force
from equation (2.1), the relation for the thickness ratio is given in equation (4.4) and plotted in Figure
4-2.

( ) ( )
( ) ( )
/ /
/ /
X Y
X Y
new new
old
X Y
X Y
old
M M
y x
I t t I t t
t
t
M M
y x
I t t I t t

`

)
=

`

)
(4.4)

The exact bending moments are not know, thus the thickness ratio is plotted against the ratio
between the edgewise and flap wise bending moment. As can be seen when the edgewise moment is
neglected (M
y
= 0 and thus the moment ratio equals zero) the thickness ratio is around 0.83.

Furthermore the thickness ratio decreases some when the edgewise moment is taken into account.
However when the edgewise moment is small compared to the flap wise moment (M
y
/ M
x
around
zero) this is a marginal difference and thus validating the assumption of neglecting the edgewise
moment. For the 5MW reference wind turbine at conditions below rated the flap wise bending
moment is an order of magnitude larger than the edgewise bending moment, and above rated 3 to 5
times bigger than the edgewise bending moment [10].

Figure 4-2: Thickness ratio vs. bending moments ratio

4.2 The PreComp method

PreComp [15] (Pre-processor for computing Composite blade structural properties) was developed
by the NREL and computes the stiffness and inertial properties of a composite blade. These
properties are almost always needed by designers for fast evaluation of different composite layouts
or as inputs for aeroelastic codes (FAST, ADAMS, BLADED) used in the wind energy industry. A
complete blade is processed by PreComp with a novel approach that integrates a modified classic
laminate theory with a shear-flow approach [2]. The advantage of PreComp over other structural
computing tools lies in its efficiency, there it is not based on the time consuming finite element
method [4].
Because PreComp is not based on finite element methods it cannot give a detailed load-displacement
or load-stress distribution. However, by simplification PreComp directly calculates the structural
properties and usually within a second. As inputs PreComp requires the description of the external
blade (chord, twist, airfoil shape, webs, etc) and the internal layup of the composite laminates
(laminate schedule, orientation, properties, etc). Common underlying assumptions are listed below:
0 0.1 0.2 0.3 0.4 0.5 0.6 0.7 0.8 0.9 1
0.74
0.75
0.76
0.77
0.78
0.79
0.8
0.81
0.82
0.83
M
y
/M
x
t
n
e
w
/
t
o
l
d

- Each blade is a thin-walled, closed, multi cellar section (constant shear flow around cells).
- No hoop stresses in any wall of a section.
- Straight blade and webs must be normal to the chord.
- Each blade section is free to warp out of its plane.
- Transverse shearing is negligible and the blade section is rigid in its own blade.

4.2.1 Assumptions

The reference station for the profile used for comparison is chosen at a radius station of R = 29.0
meters, this station falls within the range where the DU-91-W2-250 airfoil is used, see Table 3-2 [20].
Figure E-1, taken from [14], shows the stations available for comparison, structural data as materials
and different lay-ups are summarized in Table D-1 and Table D-2. Detailed aerodynamic and
structural properties from the reference wind turbine are listed below in Table 4-1 and Table 4-2.

Table 4-1: Aerodynamic properties (detailed: N=131) [20]
Element nr. Rotor
radius
Twist Chord Pitch axis
aft LE
Coord.
Pitch axis
Thickness Airfoil
[m] [deg] [m] [*chord] [m] [%]
26 28.99 7.53 3.95 0.38 0.00 25.51 DU-91-W2-250

Table 4-2: Structural properties (detailed) [20]
Element
nr.
Rotor
radius
Flap bending
stiffness (EI)
Flap bending stiffness
*1.2 (corrected)
Lead-lag bending
stiffness (EI)
Torsion
stiffness (GJ)
[m] [Nm
2
] [Nm
2
] [Nm
2
] [Nm
2
]
24 29.70 8.76E+08 1.05E+09 3.14E+09 1.20E+08

Figure E-2 shows the total lay-up of the blade, the station for comparison here is K, thus with R =29.0
meters. For the complete blade, the lay-up starts with a TRIAX-1 layer at the outside and ends with a
TRAIX-3 layer on the inside. Dependent on the chord wise position on the airfoil, the layer between is
of the type SKINFOAM, UD (spar caps) or UD_TE more towards the trailing edge. Again in Table D-1
and Table D-2 the characteristics of these layers can be found; materials used, their properties,
number of layers and thicknesses. With linear interpolation between the two known points (R =
14.0m and R = 47.0m) the number of layers for UD_TE at station K (R = 29.0m) used, is around 16
layers. An example for the structure of a profile is shown in Figure E-3. The final lay-out used for
comparison is shown in Figure 4-3, with the following assumptions taken into account:
- Upper and lower surface lay-up are similar.
- Profile is divided into five sectors along the chord.
- The chord length is 3.95 meters.

- The pitch axis lies in the middle of the spar caps at x/c = 0.38.
- The width of the spar caps (UD layer) is 0.75/3.95 = 0.19 0 .20 (is fraction of chord), so the
UD layer starts at x/c = 0.28 and ends at x/c = 0.48.
- The width of the TE_UD layer is 0.60/3.93 = 0.15 (is fraction of chord), starts at x/c = 0.80 and
ends at x/c = 0.95.
- The shear webs consists of 3 layers (2*R4545, 50mm WEBPS, 2*R4545) as in Figure E-3 and
the thickness of the layer R4545 is t = 0.94mm per layer.
- The trailing edge sandwich panel of sector 5 is modelled without the skin foam layer, this
foam layer would also not fit in reality due to the small thickness at the trailing edge.
- The blunt trailing edge is modelled in PreComp as a third web with the same structure as the
trailing edge sandwich panel in sector 5 (6*UD45R).

Figure 4-3: Profile lay-out used for comparison

4.2.2 PreComp results

First all available data for the original airfoil DU-91-W2-250, with a thickness of 25 percent, is used
for PreComp. The main input file for PreComp can be found in F.1, this file calls the files with data of
the airfoil (F.2), the internal structure (F.3) and materials used (F.4). With this PreComp computes the
stiffness and inertial properties of the airfoil, see G.1. It should be noted here that at least two
airfoils should be given as input, using two identical airfoils without any twist applied PreComp gives
the same results for both airfoils. Also the length of the blade is of no importance for this case and
thus giving a 2-D comparison between different airfoils.

With PreComp only the most important parameters are used for comparison here, these are the flap
wise, edgewise (lead-lag) and torsion stiffness. The first results of the original airfoil used with data
known from the reference wind turbine (Table 4-2) are collected in Table 4-3. The computed values
from PreComp have the same order as the data from the original turbine and are even a good
approximation. To compare the new airfoil design an identical internal structure and the same
materials are used. From Table 4-3 it is clear that the new airfoil (AF-0901) is much more stiffer than
its old airfoil (DU-91-W2-250). However the new airfoil is also a bit heavier, here the mass density is
the section mass per unit length. As stated before the chord is equal for each airfoil and so with the
mass number, the original DU-91-W2-250 airfoil is taken as reference, the airfoils can easily be
compared.

Table 4-3: Collected results PreComp
Profile Mass
density
Mass
number
Flap bending
stiffness
Lead-lag bending
stiffness
Torsion
stiffness
[kg/m] [%] [Nm
2
] [Nm
2
] [Nm
2
]
REFERENCE 0.1050E+10 0.3140E+10 0.1200E+09
DU-91-W2-250 0.4089E+03 100.0 0.1028E+10 0.3299E+10 0.1093E+09
AF-0901 0.4175E+03 102.1 0.1541E+10 0.3511E+10 0.1587E+09
AF-0901 -20% 0.2764E+03 67.6 0.1251E+10 0.2341E+10 0.1139E+09
AF-0901 -20%
(webs: 4 plies)
0.3128E+03 76.5 0.1253E+10 0.3709E+10 0.1139E+09
AF-0901 -25% 0.2642E+03 64.6 0.1190E+10 0.2253E+10 0.1136E+09
AF-0901 -25%
(webs: 4 plies)
0.3005E+03 73.5 0.1192E+10 0.3624E+10 0.1136E+09
AF-0901 -25%UD
(only spar caps )
0.3573E+03 87.4 0.1224E+10 0.3242E+10 0.1594E+09
AF-0901 -35%UD
(only spar caps )
0.3321E+03 81.2 0.1084E+10 0.3105E+10 0.1594E+09

As a next step for optimization the material used is decreased for the new airfoil, because the aim is
to have the same structural properties (equal stiffness). The number of plies used (see Internal
Structure Data File: int-du25.inp) for each laminate is now decreased with 20 percent. It has to be
noted that the number of plies should be an integer and that it is actual not possible to have for
example 1.6 ply. However a first good approximation of the structural benefits now becomes
possible. The AF-0901 version minus 20 percent per ply is also shown in Table 4-3, the airfoil is now
lighter, flap and torsion stiffness is acceptable, only the lead-lag bending stiffness is decreased
considerable.
To increase the bending stiffness to an appropriate level, one method is to add stiffness to the shear
webs. With the same reasoning as for the spar caps, which mostly effect the flap wise bending
stiffness, the shear webs contribute to the lead-lag bending stiffness. The original shear webs have 2
plies of R4545 at each side of the WEBPS, this is increases to 4 plies at each side to improve the lead-
lag bending stiffness. The lead-lag bending stiffness is because of this increased, but also the mass

number is now slightly higher (AF-0901 -20% with 4 plies, Table 4-3). This sequence is repeated for
the AF-0901 with a reduction of 25 percent for the number of all plies and layers. Table 4-3 (AF-0901
-25% with 4 plies) shows that the mass number is decreased to 73.5, meaning 26.5 percent less mass
for the new designed airfoil.
Reducing only the materials of the spar caps should resemble the results from the thin walled
structure more. Table 4-3 also gives these results from PreComp, when 35% of the spar caps material
is left out the mass number is reduced to 81.2% of its original value. So by only reducing the material
of the spar caps, the weight is reduced by 18.8%. As a final note it should be mentioned that the
effect of the material reduction on the buckling resistance is not taken into account. By removing
material from the spar caps or other sections the stiffness is lowered. However, when too much
material is removed, buckling of the spar caps or airfoil skin could occur.

Design issues 47

5 Design issues

Now the final design of the AF-0901 airfoil is known, in this chapter important issues to take into
account while using this airfoil for a new blade are discussed. The first part focuses on different
suction distributions, then in section 5.2 the effect of gusts or variation of the angle of attack is
mentioned. In section 5.3 another comparison with the original DU-91-W2-250 is given to discuss the
upcoming wind tunnel test. In the last section of this chapter, section 5.3, a comparison is made with
the DU-97-W-300 airfoil which has a similar thickness as the AF-090.

5.1 Modify suction distribution

5.1.1 Variation of suction length

Figure 5-1 shows the influence of the length of the suction distribution, changing the length effects
the sucked volume of air and thus the performance of the airfoil. To keep the structural integrity of
the airfoil intact, only over the last 30 percent of the chord suction is applied. Furthermore, the last 5
percent is not used at all because of the limited volume for that part of the airfoil. The original
applied sucked area along the upper surface is from x/c = 0.70 to x/c = 0.95, thus the blue line in
Figure 5-1. During the design process the maximum possible suction area along the upper surface is
used.
This length is shortened in two ways, first suction is applied from the original starting point of x/c =
0.70 up to x/c = 0.85. As expected this results in an overall lower lift-to-drag ratio and stall
postponement is less than with the original length. By shortening the length of the sucked area the
volume of sucked air is reduced and thus the effects of boundary layer suction are reduced. The red
line in Figure 5-1, the second variation of suction area is now from x/c = 0.80 to x/c = 0.95, also shows
these reduced effects due to shortening of the suction length.
In addition this example shows that it is favourable to apply suction as soon as possible. In other
words if it necessary to shorten the length of the sucked area it is better to apply suction closer to
the nose. For both cases (x/c = 0.70 to x/c = 0.85 and x/c = 0.80 to x/c = 0.95) the length of the
sucked are is equal, also the suction distribution is similar and thus the sucked volume of air is the
same. Keeping this in mind Figure 5-1 than shows that with suction applied closer to the nose (x/c =
0.70 to 0.85) a higher lift-to-drag ratio is obtained and stall is longer postponed. If flow separation
occurs before the starting point suction has less effect, thus moving the suction starting point
forwards reduces this drawback.

48 Design issues


Figure 5-1: Polars of the AF-0901 airfoil for different suction lengths (soiled case; Re = 8e6; v/U = 0.003; c/r = 0.09)

5.1.2 Variation of suction velocity

The polars for different suction velocities for the clean and soiled conditions are plotted in Figure 5-2
and Figure 5-3. As mentioned before, for the clean case the performance of the new AF-0901 airfoil
is equivalent to that of the original DU-91-W2-250 airfoil, even without suction (see the red line in
Figure 5-2). Performance is here specified in terms of lift-to-drag ratio, smooth stall and maximum
and design lift coefficient. For the new AF-0901 up to an angle of attack of 5 degrees the lift-to-drag
ratio lags behind that of the original airfoil and applying suction improves the performance for this
range by increasing this lift-to-drag ratio, see Figure 5-2. Increasing the suction velocity even more
does not have a great effect for the lift-to-drag ratio for the same alpha range, it does increases the
lift-to-drag ratio up to = 13 degrees.
By increasing the suction velocity the maximum lift coefficient is also increased and rises above the
original, thereby increasing static operating loads. Furthermore the smooth stall behaviour of the
DU-91-W2-250 airfoil is in less extent present, the AF-0901 has a greater dip after the maximum lift
coefficient. This does not necessary has to be a negative property, indeed a higher maximum lift
coefficient increases the static loads. However, the decrease of the lift coefficient after its maximum
for the new AF-0901 lowers the loads on the blade again, whereas the lift coefficient of the original
airfoil remains nearly constant after its maximum due to its smooth stall. Besides this, the AF-0901
airfoil has a much higher lift-to-drag ratio in the region before the maximum lift coefficient leading to
a higher energy yield. Summarizing for the clean conditions, the AF-0901 with boundary layer suction
(v/U = 0.003) has up to = 5 degrees a similar lift-to-drag ratio and maximum lift coefficient, after
this angle of attack the lift-to-drag ratio improves. The lift coefficient rises above the original and
after its maximum it drops again below that of the original.

-10 -5 0 5 10 15 20
-1
-0.5
0
0.5
1
1.5
2
o
C
L
-100 -50 0 50 100 150
-1
-0.5
0
0.5
1
1.5
2
C
L
C
L
/C
D
0 0.02 0.04 0.06 0.08 0.1 0.12 0.14
-1
-0.5
0
0.5
1
1.5
2
C
D
C
L

AF-0901 (x/c = 0.70 to 0.95)
AF-0901 (x/c = 0.70 to 0.85)
AF-0901 (x/c = 0.80 to 0.95)
-10 -5 0 5 10 15 20
-100
-50
0
50
100
150
o
C
L
/C
D
Design issues 49

For the soiled case shown in Figure 5-3 the suction velocity is more critical. The range of alpha where
the lift-to-drag ratio is greater than the original is reduced when the suction velocity is lowered from
0.3 to 0.2 percent. The maximum lift coefficient is also more effected, the drop of its maximum (for
0.3 to 0.2 percent) is substantially larger than for the clean case. Lowering the original suction
velocity of v/U = 0.003 now becomes interesting, a lower maximum lift coefficient will lower the
static operational loads. On the other hand reducing the suction velocity to v/U = -0.002 creates a
critical region with a lower lift-to-drag ratio. Important here is keeping in mind the normal operating
alpha range of the wind turbine as given in Table 3-3. Choosing the suction velocity will then be a
trade-off between a greater range of superior lift-to-drag ratio for extra power production and a
lower maximum lift coefficient to reduce loads. A small reduction in maximum power coefficient is
seen as less important than the increase in expected maximum operational loads [16].
In case of extreme conditions the maximum lift coefficient can be reduced even more, this can be
done by shutting off the boundary layer suction system. For example by closing a valve at the tip the
passive system is turned off, air cannot flow from inboard towards the tip section and therefore no
under pressure is possible. The polars of the new AF-0901 airfoil without suction is shown by the red
lines in Figure 5-2 and Figure 5-3, notice the large difference in maximum lift coefficient in
comparison to the green lines (v/U = -0.003).

Figure 5-2: Effect of suction velocity (clean case; Re = 8e6; c/r = 0.09)

-10 -5 0 5 10 15 20
-1
-0.5
0
0.5
1
1.5
2
o
C
L
-100 -50 0 50 100 150 200 250
-1
-0.5
0
0.5
1
1.5
2
C
L
C
L
/C
D
0 0.02 0.04 0.06 0.08 0.1 0.12 0.14
-1
-0.5
0
0.5
1
1.5
2
C
D
C
L

DU-91-W2-250
AF-0901 with v/U = 0
AF-0901 with v/U = -0.001
AF-0901 with v/U = -0.002
AF-0901 with v/U = -0.003
-10 -5 0 5 10 15 20
-100
-50
0
50
100
150
200
250
o
C
L
/C
D
50 Design issues


Figure 5-3: Effect of suction velocity (soiled case; Re = 8e6; c/r = 0.09)

5.1.3 Apply linear suction

As said before the air from the boundary layer is passively sucked into the blade and released again
at the tip. Because of this passive system the pressure along the length of the blade will vary,
however at a specific blade position, along the chord of an airfoil, the inside pressure is constant.
There the pressure along the upper surface changes along the chord also the pressure difference will
vary along the chord. After a negative pressure peak the pressure rises towards the trailing edge
decreasing the under pressure along the upper surface. For simplicity reasons the suction material
and thickness along the chord is assumed to remain equal. The applied block suction distribution up
to now will not be possible in reality, a linear increasing suction velocity is therefore more realistic.

-10 -5 0 5 10 15 20
-1
-0.5
0
0.5
1
1.5
2
o
C
L
-100 -50 0 50 100 150 200 250
-1
-0.5
0
0.5
1
1.5
2
C
L
C
L
/C
D
0 0.02 0.04 0.06 0.08 0.1 0.12 0.14
-1
-0.5
0
0.5
1
1.5
2
C
D
C
L

DU-91-W2-250
AF-0901 with v/U = 0
AF-0901 with v/U = -0.001
AF-0901 with v/U = -0.002
AF-0901 with v/U = -0.003
-10 -5 0 5 10 15 20
-100
-50
0
50
100
150
200
250
o
C
L
/C
D
Design issues 51


Figure 5-4: Different suction distributions

Figure 5-4 shows the original block distribution and three other applied linear distributions. Two of
which have an average suction velocity equal to the original, only starting at a lower value and
ending at a higher one. The third (purple line) starts at zero and rises to a suction velocity of v/U = -
0.003, lowering the average suction velocity over the whole length and thus the total sucked volume
of air. Because of this lower average suction velocity, the performance for this case will be less than
for the other cases. This is illustrated in Figure 5-5 with a lower lift coefficient and lower lift-to-drag
ratio for the purple line (v/U = 0 to -0.003). Although for the other two cases the sucked volume of
air is the same as for the original block distribution, the overall lift-to-drag ratio and lift coefficient is
reduced. In addition the linear suction distribution with a higher starting velocity (the red line in
Figure 5-4 and Figure 5-5) has a slightly better performance in terms of lift-to-drag ratio. The
reasoning behind this effect is analogous to the effect of moving the suction distribution more
forward, preventing a thicker boundary layer is better than curing one.

0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1 1.2 1.4
-5
-4.5
-4
-3.5
-3
-2.5
-2
-1.5
-1
-0.5
0
x 10
-3
x/c
v/U

Block suction (v/U = -0.003 constant)
Linear suction (v/U = -0.001 to -0.005)
52 Design issues


Figure 5-5: Effect of different suction distributions (soiled case; Re = 4e6; c/r = 0)

5.2 Suction variation due to gusts

Due to for example gusts the angle of attack of an airfoil could almost instantly increase
considerable, furthermore during this process the rotor has little time to react and the rotational
speed remains constant. As a result of these two events the relative wind velocity and thus the
suction velocity (v/U) is affected. The relation between the angle of attack (), the rotational speed
() and the relative wind velocity (U
rel
) is given in equation (5.1) [3]. The angle of relative wind ()
consists of the angle of attack and the section pitch angle (), a presentable sectional pitch angle
here is = 7.8 degrees, see Table 3-2.

( ) ( ) cos cos
rel
r
U
u o
O
= + = (5.1)

As an example case, the angle of attack is increased from = 5 degrees to = 15 degrees. Assuming a
constant rotational speed (r = 1), the relation for the relative wind velocity than becomes:

-10 -5 0 5 10 15 20
-1
-0.5
0
0.5
1
1.5
2
o
C
L
-60 -40 -20 0 20 40 60 80 100 120 140
-1
-0.5
0
0.5
1
1.5
2
C
L
C
L
/C
D
0 0.02 0.04 0.06 0.08 0.1 0.12 0.14 0.16
-1
-0.5
0
0.5
1
1.5
2
C
D
C
L

AF-0901 (v/U = 0.003 constant)
AF-0901 (v/U = 0.001 to 0.005)
AF-0901 (v/U = 0.002 to 0.004)
AF-0901 (v/U = 0.000 to 0.003)
-10 -5 0 5 10 15 20
-100
-50
0
50
100
150
o
C
L
/C
D
Design issues 53


( )
( )
( )
( )
5
15
5
15
1
cos 7.8 5
1
cos 7.8 15
cos 7.8 15
cos 7.8 5
U
U
U
U
o
o
o
o
=
=
=
=
+ =
+ =
+
=
+
(5.2)

The new suction velocity is than easily calculated by:

( )
( )
5
15 5 15
cos 7.8 15
0.003 0.003 0.945 0.00284
cos 7.8 5
U v v
U U U
o
o o o
=
= = =
+
= = = =
+
(5.3)

If the angle of attack increases from = 5 degrees to = 10 degrees the suction velocity becomes v/U
= 0.0029. Therefore the suction velocity is hardly affected by gusts, only a reduction of 5 percent for
extreme cases.

5.3 Wind tunnel considerations

In Figure 5-6 and Figure 5-7 a comparison is given between the original airfoil characteristics
calculated with XFOIL, RFOIL (without rotation) and measured results from wind tunnel tests. Clearly
shown is the improved prediction of RFOIL over XFOIL near and beyond the maximum lift coefficient
compared to the test results. Still RFOIL calculations are a bit too optimistic resulting in a lower drag
and a slightly higher (maximum) lift coefficient for the calculated results. For the clean case the
maximum lift coefficient is well predicted, on the other hand for the rough conditions the maximum
lift coefficient is over predicted. Furthermore it is known from experts that RFOIL usually produces
10-15 percent less drag, for thicker airfoils (t/c > 0.3) the drag underestimation is closer to 15
percent. This is mainly caused by underestimation of the boundary layer thickness by RFOIL [19]. For
the new AF-0901 airfoil similar results are expected from wind tunnel tests.

54 Design issues


Figure 5-6: Comparison of XFOIL, RFOIL and wind tunnel tests (clean case; Re = 3e6; M = 0.21; c/r = 0)

Figure 5-7: Comparison of XFOIL, RFOIL and wind tunnel tests (soiled case; Re = 3e6; M = 0.22; c/r = 0)

5.4 Comparison with similar profile

In section 5.3 the new airfoil is compared with the original DU-91-W2-250 airfoil, in this section the
AF-0901 will be equated with the DU-97-W300 airfoil, which has an equal thickness of t/c =0.3. The
clean and soiled cases for both airfoils are shown in Figure 5-8 and the stiffness properties are given
in Table 5-1. These structural properties were calculated with PreComp and with the original lay-up
as discussed in section 4.2, the stiffness is calculated with the same lay-up for each airfoil. Taking a
-10 -5 0 5 10 15 20 25
-1
-0.5
0
0.5
1
1.5
2
o
C
L
-100 -50 0 50 100 150
-1
-0.5
0
0.5
1
1.5
2
C
L
C
L
/C
D
0 0.05 0.1 0.15 0.2 0.25 0.3 0.35
-1
-0.5
0
0.5
1
1.5
2
C
D
C
L

DU-91-W2-250 test results
DU-91-W2-250 (XFOIL)
DU-91-W2-250 (RFOIL)
AF-0901 (RFOIL)
-10 -5 0 5 10 15 20 25
-100
-50
0
50
100
150
o
C
L
/C
D
-10 -5 0 5 10 15 20 25
-1
-0.5
0
0.5
1
1.5
2
o
C
L
-100 -50 0 50 100 150
-1
-0.5
0
0.5
1
1.5
2
C
L
C
L
/C
D
0 0.05 0.1 0.15 0.2 0.25 0.3 0.35
-1
-0.5
0
0.5
1
1.5
2
C
D
C
L

DU-91-W2-250 test results
DU-91-W2-250 (XFOIL)
DU-91-W2-250 (RFOIL)
AF-0901 (RFOIL)
-10 -5 0 5 10 15 20 25
-100
-50
0
50
100
150
o
C
L
/C
D
Design issues 55

closer look at Figure 5-8 and Table 5-1 the following can be concluded for a comparison of the AF-
0901 and DU-97-W-300 airfoils:
- Up to an angle of attack of =10 degrees the lift-to-drag ratio for the clean condition is much
higher for the AF-0901 airfoil.
- For soiled conditions the lift-to-drag ratio for both airfoils is comparable up to =5 degrees,
after this point the lift-to-drag ratio of the AF-0901 drops considerable. This better
performance of the DU-97-W-300 airfoil is mainly due to its reduced upper surface thickness.
- For the soiled conditions the maximum lift coefficient is higher for the DU-97-W-300 airfoil,
with similar chord lengths this could lead to increased operational loads.
- For the clean conditions the AF-0901 airfoil has a slightly higher maximum lift coefficient.
- The smooth stall characteristics are comparable for both airfoils, the drop of the lift
coefficient is more significant for the clean case.
- Calculated stiffness properties are almost similar for both airfoils, with a small advantage for
the AF-0901 airfoil.

Table 5-1: Structural properties calculated with PreComp
Profile Mass
density
Mass
number
Flap bending
stiffness
Lead-lag bending
stiffness
Torsion
stiffness
[kg/m] [%] [Nm
2
] [Nm
2
] [Nm
2
]
REFERENCE 0.1050E+10 0.3140E+10 0.1200E+09
DU-91-W2-250 0.4089E+03 100.0 0.1028E+10 0.3299E+10 0.1093E+09
AF-0901 0.4175E+03 102.1 0.1541E+10 0.3511E+10 0.1587E+09
DU-97-W-300 0.4178E+03 102.2 0.1447E+10 0.3504E+10 0.1512E+09

Figure 5-8: Comparison of airfoils with RFOIL (Re = 3e6; M = 0.22; c/r = 0)

-10 -5 0 5 10 15 20 25
-1
-0.5
0
0.5
1
1.5
2
o
C
L
-100 -50 0 50 100 150
-1
-0.5
0
0.5
1
1.5
2
C
L
C
L
/C
D
0 0.05 0.1 0.15 0.2 0.25 0.3 0.35
-1
-0.5
0
0.5
1
1.5
2
C
D
C
L

AF-0901 (clean)
AF-0901 (soiled)
DU-97-W-300 (clean)
DU-97-W-300 (soiled)
-10 -5 0 5 10 15 20 25
-100
-50
0
50
100
150
o
C
L
/C
D
Conclusions and recommendations 57

6 Conclusions and recommendations

6.1 Conclusions

Increasing the thickness of the blade results in a greater stiffness for a wind turbine blade, while
keeping the stresses due to bending constant a reduction of material is then possible. However, due
to the thickness increase the aerodynamic properties of the airfoil are reduced. An aerodynamic
redesign with the use of boundary layer suction of an airfoil is for this reason performed. With the
application of boundary layer suction the thickness of the original airfoil was increased from t/c =
0.25 to t/c = 0.30, an increase in thickness of 20%. The newly designed airfoil, the AF-0901, was
optimized while keeping similar aerodynamic performance in terms of maximum lift-to-drag ratio,
maximum lift coefficient and smooth stall control. A high maximum lift-to-drag ratio yields a high
power output, while minimizing the maximum lift coefficient and obtaining smooth stall control
reduces the operational loads on a wind turbine.
The variation of the suction velocity is a possible design option for engineers, this variation will be an
assessment between additional power output or reduced loads. Increasing the suction velocity
affects the maximum lift-to-drag ratio and thereby increasing the power output. However, the
maximum lift coefficient is also increased, which increases the operational loads and reduces the
smoother stall after the maximum lift coefficient.

It is shown that the increased stiffness reduces the use of material considerably. The airfoil was
optimized with respect to stiffness and maximum stress requirements, the possible buckling of the
skin or spar caps due to the reduction of material use was not taken into account. An airfoil can for
example be modelled as a simple beam, with the spar caps as the thick upper and lower flanges, or
as a thin walled shell structure. For the simple beam theory only the spar caps were taken into
account and for the shell structure one global material was assumed for the different sections of the
airfoil. These methods gave a reduction in material of 17%.
For a more in depth analysis the program PreComp was applied, because of this a structural analysis
with different laminates and materials for the spar caps, webs and skins is possible. First, overall
material used for the airfoil was reduced, with this approach the mass density, the section mass per
unit length, was reduced with more than 28%. Secondly, the spar cap material was lowered similar to
the simple beam theory, reducing only the materials used for the spar caps gave a reduction of
almost 19%.

6.2 Recommendations

6.2.1 Wind tunnel test for the AF-0901 airfoil

For the redesign of the original DU-91-W2-250 airfoil RFOIL-suc was used, the program RFOIL-suc is a
combination of the already validated codes RFOIL and XFOIL (with suction). The need of validation of
RFOIL-suc is apparent, just like the results produced by RFOIL-suc. As with most airfoils it is important
to test the AF-0901 airfoil in the wind tunnel during fixed and controllable conditions to verify the
current design. By testing the airfoil in de wind tunnel the design is checked and in addition to this
the application of boundary layer suction can be validated. The preparations for the wind tunnel test
of the AF-0901 are already made by Atiflow BV and the process is in an advanced phase.

6.2.2 Redesign of other airfoils to fit BLS

In this study one airfoil around mid span of the reference UpWind 5MW wind turbine was optimized
for the application of boundary layer suction. To fully understand the effect of boundary layer
suction for the wind turbine, also the airfoils at the other stations should be redesigned to fit
boundary layer suction. With the complete redesign of the blade the performance of the new blade
can be analyzed and the wind turbine can be further optimized.

6.2.3 Intensive study to optimize structural design

The structural benefits of the AF-0901 airfoil compared with the original airfoil were examined, to
fully benefit from the boundary layer suction application the complete blade should be analyzed. An
intensive study of the structure of the new thicker blade is needed to optimize the use of materials
and thereby reducing the costs. Currently a study of the internal structure of the UpWind 5MW wind
turbine is in progress at Actiflow BV. Instead of reducing the blade costs by optimizing the internal
structure, the study could also focus on scaling the original wind turbine blade to increase the power
output without the standard additional costs for the blades. Furthermore a practical boundary layer
suction application is needed in the future to apply on a actual wind turbine so the complete system
including weather resistance can be tested .

Appendix 59

A Airfoil example files

A.1 Coordinate file

1-1.air (DU 91-W2-250)
0.0 0.0 2.00 2.00 6.00
1.000000 0.003247
0.992034 0.005528
0.980658 0.008716
0.966567 0.012514
...
...
0.000000 0.000000
...
...
0.939895 0.006296
0.953314 0.004622
0.966976 0.002574
0.980244 0.000330
0.991806 -0.001748
1.000000 -0.003239

A.2 Suction distribution file

Base suction distribution 1-1.suc v/U=-.001 x/c=0.7-0.95
1.000001 0.000000
0.991323 0.000000
0.979244 0.000000
0.964411 0.000000
0.947401 -0.001000
0.929197 -0.001000
0.910549 -0.001000
0.891742 -0.001000
0.872911 -0.001000
0.854163 -0.001000
0.835456 -0.001000
0.816629 -0.001000
0.797844 -0.001000
0.779249 -0.001000
0.760752 -0.001000
0.742249 -0.001000
0.723695 -0.001000
0.705193 -0.001000
0.686803 0.000000
0.668549 0.000000
0.650394 0.000000
...
0.000000 0.000000
...
0.935261 0.000000
0.947761 0.000000
0.960297 0.000000
0.972619 0.000000
0.983944 0.000000
0.993225 0.000000
1.000001 0.000000

60 Appendix

A.3 Polar file from RFOIL

RFOIL Version 1.0

Calculated polar for: 1-1.air (DU 91-W2-250)

1 Reynolds number fixed

xtrf = 1.000 (suction) 1.000 (pressure)
Rot. Parameters: f0 = 1.000 c/r = 0.090
Mach = 0.000 Re = 8.000 e 6 Ncrit = 9.000

alpha CL CD Re(CL) CM S_xtr P_xtr CDp
------- -------- --------- --------- -------- ------- ------- --------
0.000 0.4610 0.00572 8.00000 -0.1349 0.4334 0.4247 0.00179
0.500 0.5252 0.00575 8.00000 -0.1367 0.4280 0.4324 0.00182
1.000 0.5895 0.00576 8.00000 -0.1384 0.4237 0.4383 0.00185
1.500 0.6534 0.00579 8.00000 -0.1400 0.4200 0.4452 0.00188
2.000 0.7171 0.00585 8.00000 -0.1416 0.4149 0.4511 0.00193
2.500 0.7803 0.00593 8.00000 -0.1431 0.4090 0.4567 0.00200
3.000 0.8438 0.00596 8.00000 -0.1446 0.4037 0.4628 0.00206
3.500 0.9067 0.00606 8.00000 -0.1460 0.3975 0.4687 0.00214
4.000 0.9688 0.00620 8.00000 -0.1472 0.3849 0.4729 0.00225
4.500 1.0302 0.00639 8.00000 -0.1484 0.3680 0.4782 0.00239
5.000 1.0834 0.00735 8.00000 -0.1483 0.2865 0.4835 0.00294
5.500 1.1364 0.00823 8.00000 -0.1481 0.2245 0.4869 0.00350
6.000 1.1895 0.00901 8.00000 -0.1479 0.1765 0.4926 0.00404
6.500 1.2418 0.00978 8.00000 -0.1475 0.1354 0.4967 0.00460
7.000 1.2912 0.01065 8.00000 -0.1466 0.0946 0.5004 0.00524
7.500 1.3414 0.01136 8.00000 -0.1458 0.0704 0.5034 0.00580
8.000 1.3905 0.01204 8.00000 -0.1448 0.0536 0.5090 0.00639
8.500 1.4384 0.01269 8.00000 -0.1436 0.0414 0.5128 0.00697
9.000 1.4835 0.01337 8.00000 -0.1419 0.0333 0.5162 0.00759
9.500 1.5223 0.01407 8.00000 -0.1391 0.0275 0.5198 0.00826
10.000 1.5471 0.01490 8.00000 -0.1337 0.0236 0.5241 0.00909
10.500 1.5759 0.01593 8.00000 -0.1296 0.0210 0.5285 0.01013
11.000 1.6008 0.01724 8.00000 -0.1255 0.0185 0.5317 0.01146
11.500 1.6231 0.01885 8.00000 -0.1217 0.0170 0.5346 0.01310
12.000 1.6400 0.02097 8.00000 -0.1179 0.0158 0.5390 0.01528
12.500 1.6546 0.02355 8.00000 -0.1148 0.0145 0.5427 0.01792
13.000 1.6643 0.02671 8.00000 -0.1121 0.0139 0.5465 0.02118
13.500 1.6673 0.03064 8.00000 -0.1099 0.0134 0.5492 0.02520
14.000 1.6643 0.03512 8.00000 -0.1080 0.0129 0.5515 0.02979
14.500 1.6522 0.04049 8.00000 -0.1067 0.0124 0.5559 0.03529
15.000 1.6418 0.04601 8.00000 -0.1064 0.0120 0.5589 0.04095
15.500 1.6362 0.05144 8.00000 -0.1069 0.0114 0.5616 0.04649
16.000 1.6362 0.05681 8.00000 -0.1082 0.0111 0.5644 0.05198
16.500 1.6430 0.06168 8.00000 -0.1097 0.0109 0.5669 0.05693
17.000 1.6457 0.06749 8.00000 -0.1122 0.0107 0.5709 0.06285
17.500 1.6525 0.07297 8.00000 -0.1146 0.0104 0.5744 0.06843
18.000 1.6603 0.07846 8.00000 -0.1171 0.0102 0.5776 0.07400
18.500 1.6670 0.08412 8.00000 -0.1198 0.0099 0.5805 0.07974
19.000 1.6736 0.08993 8.00000 -0.1225 0.0095 0.5835 0.08563
19.500 1.6849 0.09510 8.00000 -0.1250 0.0091 0.5875 0.09087
20.000 1.6901 0.10128 8.00000 -0.1282 0.0085 0.5911 0.09715

Appendix 61

B Visual Basic Script files

B.1 CreateProfileField.vbs

Batch file: Cscript.exe //NoLogo NewAirfoils.vbs | xfoil_new.exe

' *******************************************************************************
' First we need to declare START and END values for the thickness (y=t/c)
' and position of thickest point (x=x/c at y/c_max),
' plus the number of points and thus the stepsize.
' *******************************************************************************
dblThicknessStart = .25 ' t/c start value (Y=t/c)
dblThicknessEnd = .4 ' t/c end value

dblThickPositionStart = .325 ' x/c at t/c(max) start value (X=x/c)
dblThickPositionEnd = .525 ' x/c at t/c(max) end value

intPoints = 9
' number of points MINUS 1
'(so 10 points --> intPoints=9; first point plus number of steps=intPoints)

' stepsize for thickness
dblThickStepsize = (dblThicknessEnd - dblThicknessStart) / intPoints

' stepsize for thickness point
dblThickPosStepsize = (dblThickPositionEnd - dblThickPositionStart ) / intPoints
' *******************************************************************************
l = 1
m = 1

' *******************************************************************************
' First FOR loop is for going through the X-values (x/c) and for each X-value a new
' loop is created to run through the Y-values (t/c). During the second loop XFOIL
' will create a new airfoil file (X-Y.air) with the current X- and Y-value.
' *******************************************************************************
For i = dblThickPositionStart to dblThickPositionEnd step dblThickPosStepsize
' loop for x/c
dblThickPosition = i
For j = dblThicknessStart to dblThicknessEnd step dblThickStepsize
'loop for t/c
dblThickness = j
'************************************************************************
' Xfoil inputs
'************************************************************************
Wscript.Stdout.WriteLine "load du25.air" ' load base irfoil
Wscript.Sleep 10
Wscript.Stdout.WriteLine "gdes" ' enter GDES menu
Wscript.Sleep 10
Wscript.Stdout.WriteLine "tset" ' set new thickness and camber
Wscript.Sleep 10
Wscript.Stdout.WriteLine dblThickness ' new thickness
Wscript.Sleep 10
Wscript.Stdout.WriteLine "" ' ENTER: no new camber
Wscript.Sleep 10
Wscript.Stdout.WriteLine "exec" ' set current airfoil
Wscript.Sleep 10
Wscript.Stdout.WriteLine "high" ' move camber and thickness highpoints
Wscript.Sleep 10
62 Appendix

Wscript.Stdout.WriteLine dblThickPosition ' new thickness highpoint
Wscript.Sleep 10
Wscript.Stdout.WriteLine "" ' ENTER: no new camber highpoint
Wscript.Sleep 10
Wscript.Stdout.WriteLine "exec" ' set current airfoil
Wscript.Sleep 10
Wscript.Stdout.WriteLine "" ' ENTER: go to OPER menu
Wscript.Sleep 10
Wscript.Stdout.WriteLine "name" ' name airfoil
Wscript.Sleep 10
Wscript.Stdout.WriteLine l & "-" & m & ".air (DU 91-W2-250)" ' name
Wscript.Sleep 10
Wscript.Stdout.WriteLine "isav" ' write airfoil to ISES coordinate file
Wscript.Sleep 10
Wscript.Stdout.WriteLine l & "-" & m & ".air" ' write as XY.air
Wscript.Sleep 10
'***********************************************************************
m=m+1
Next
m=1
l=l+1
Next
Wscript.Stdout.WriteLine "quit" ' quit XFOIL
Wscript.Sleep 10
' *******************************************************************************

B.2 CreateSuction.vbs

Batch file: Cscript.exe //NoLogo CreateSuction.vbs
' Create explicit variables
Option Explicit
Dim objShell ' run/quit xfoil
Dim x,y 'integers
' ********************************************************************************
' First FOR loop is for going through the X-values (x/c) and for each X-value a new
' loop is created to run through the Y-values (t/c). --> x-y.air
' ********************************************************************************
For x = 1 to 10 step 1 ' loop for x/c

For y = 1 to 10 step 1 'loop for t/c

' Create Object Shell to run and quit Xfoil
Set objShell = CreateObject("WScript.Shell")
objShell.Run "rfoilsuc", 3, false ' Open Xfoilsuc
Wscript.Sleep 600

'========================================================================
' Rfoil inputs
'========================================================================
objShell.SendKeys "iloa" & "{ENTER}" ' load airfoil
Wscript.Sleep 100
objShell.SendKeys x & "-" & y & ".air" & "{ENTER}" ' load airfoil
Wscript.Sleep 100
objShell.SendKeys "oper" & "{ENTER}" ' enter OPER menu
Wscript.Sleep 100
objShell.SendKeys "vdes" & "{ENTER}" ' enter VDES menu
Wscript.Sleep 100
objShell.SendKeys "3e6" & "{ENTER}" ' set Reynolds number
Wscript.Sleep 100
objShell.SendKeys "load" & "{ENTER}" ' load suction distribution
Wscript.Sleep 100
objShell.SendKeys "base.suc" & "{ENTER}" ' enter RFoilSuc base suction
Wscript.Sleep 100
Appendix 63

objShell.SendKeys "exec" & "{ENTER}" ' set active Vsuc from buffer Vsuc
Wscript.Sleep 100
objShell.SendKeys "save" & "{ENTER}" ' save current Vsuc to file
Wscript.Sleep 100
objShell.SendKeys x & "-" & y & ".bsuc" & "{ENTER}" ' (x-y.suc)
Wscript.Sleep 100
objShell.SendKeys x & "-" & y & ".bsuc" & "{ENTER}" ' (x-y.suc)
Wscript.Sleep 100
objShell.SendKeys "{ENTER}"
Wscript.Sleep 100
Wscript.Sleep 100
Wscript.Sleep 100
objShell.SendKeys "quit" & "{ENTER}" 'quit RFOIL
Wscript.Sleep 100
objShell.SendKeys "%y"
WScript.Sleep 900

Next
Next

' End script
WScript.Quit

B.3 CreatePolar.vbs

Batch file: Cscript.exe //NoLogo Createpolar.vbs
' Create explicit variables
Option Explicit
Dim objShell, objExec, objWMIService, objProcess, colProcess ' run/quit xfoil
Dim strComputer, strProcessKill 'quit routine xfoil
Dim x, y, s 'integers

' String variables needed for Quit routine
strComputer = "."
strProcessKill = "'rfoilsuc.exe'"

For x = 1 to 10 step 1 ' loop for x/c
For y = 1 to 10 step 1 ' loop for t/c
For s = 0 to 6 step 1 ' suction scale factor
' Create Object Shell to run and quit Xfoil
Set objShell = CreateObject("WScript.Shell")
objShell.Run "rfoilsuc", 3, false ' Open Xfoilsuc
Wscript.Sleep 900
'============================================================================
' Rfoil inputs
'============================================================================
' Note 1:
' Maximize Rfoil window for input of VBScript otherwise graphic window is the
' active window and no input is possible anymore. When window is maximized the
' 'input' window will be the active window.
' Note 2:
' When Rfoil is calculating the window is not active and the script has to
' "sleep" untill Rfoil is finished or the commands are lost. This is different
' from Xfoil, where the script commands will wait for Xfoil to finish, the
' commands are queued and then past to Xfoil (This doesn't work for Rfoil!!!).

objShell.SendKeys "%{ENTER}" ' maximize window
WScript.Sleep 1000
64 Appendix

objShell.SendKeys "iloa" & "{ENTER}" ' load airfoil
Wscript.Sleep 1000
objShell.SendKeys x & "-" & y & "-b.air" & "{ENTER}" ' airfoil name
Wscript.Sleep 1000
objShell.SendKeys "oper" & "{ENTER}" ' enter OPER menu
Wscript.Sleep 1000
objShell.SendKeys "vdes" & "{ENTER}" ' enter VDES menu
Wscript.Sleep 1000
objShell.SendKeys "8e6" & "{ENTER}" ' set Reynolds number
Wscript.Sleep 1000
objShell.SendKeys "load" & "{ENTER}" ' load suction distribution
Wscript.Sleep 1000
objShell.SendKeys x & "-" & y & ".suc" & "{ENTER}" ' enter base suction
Wscript.Sleep 1000
Wscript.Sleep 1000
objShell.SendKeys "scal" & "{ENTER}" ' scale buffer Vsuc
Wscript.Sleep 1000
objShell.SendKeys s & "{ENTER}" ' scale factor
Wscript.Sleep 1000
Wscript.Sleep 1000
objShell.SendKeys "{ENTER}" ' ENTER: return to OPER menu
Wscript.Sleep 1000
objShell.SendKeys "vpar" & "{ENTER}" ' enter VPAR menu
Wscript.Sleep 1000
objShell.SendKeys "xtr" & "{ENTER}" ' change trip positions Xtr/c
Wscript.Sleep 1000
objShell.SendKeys "0.05" & "{ENTER}" ' enter suction side Xtr/c
Wscript.Sleep 1000
objShell.SendKeys "1" & "{ENTER}" ' enter pressure side Xtr/c
Wscript.Sleep 1000
objShell.SendKeys "cr" & "{ENTER}" ' change c/r ratio
Wscript.Sleep 1000
objShell.SendKeys "0.09" & "{ENTER}" ' set c/r ratio
Wscript.Sleep 1000
objShell.SendKeys "{ENTER}" ' ENTER: return to OPER menu
Wscript.Sleep 1000
objShell.SendKeys "pacc" & "{ENTER}" ' start auto point accumulation
Wscript.Sleep 1000
objShell.SendKeys x & "-" & y & "-s" & s & ".plr" & "{ENTER}"
' enter polar name
Wscript.Sleep 1000
objShell.SendKeys "{ENTER}" ' ENTER: no dump file
Wscript.Sleep 1000
objShell.SendKeys "aseq" & "{ENTER}" ' calculate sequence of alpha's
Wscript.Sleep 1000
objShell.SendKeys "-10" & "{ENTER}" ' enter first alpha
Wscript.Sleep 1000
objShell.SendKeys "20" & "{ENTER}" ' enter last alpha
Wscript.Sleep 1000
objShell.SendKeys "0.5" & "{ENTER}" ' enter alpha increment
Wscript.Sleep 1000

' Check status Xfoil (0=running)
Set objExec = objShell.Exec("rfoilsuc")
' Display status Xfoil in CMD window
WScript.Echo "Status rfoilsucblind = " & objExec.Status
Wscript.Sleep 1000

' Quit Xfoil
If objExec.Status = 0 Then
' Search for Xfoil with strProcessKill
Set objWMIService = GetObject("winmgmts:" &
"{impersonationLevel=impersonate}!\\" & strComputer & "\root\cimv2")
Set colProcess = objWMIService.ExecQuery ("Select * from Win32_Process Where
Name = " & strProcessKill )
' Terminate Xfoil
Appendix 65

For Each objProcess in colProcess
objProcess.Terminate()
Next
' Display Xfoil killed in CMD window
WSCript.Echo "Just killed process " & strProcessKill & "-" & x & "-" & y & "-"
& s
End If
Wscript.Sleep 900

Next
Next
Next

' End script
WScript.Quit

Appendix 67

C MATLAB files

C.1 CreateCorrectSuction.M

for x = 1:10
for y = 1:10
% sucfilename = x-y.bsuc
sucfilename = [num2str(x,15) '-' num2str(y,15) '.bsuc']

% read textfilename for positon and suction velocity
[pos vel] = textread(sucfilename,'%f %f','headerlines',1);

% number of entries in pos
length_pos = length(pos);

% size SUC = [2,length(pos)]
suc1 = pos'; % 1st row is position
suc2 = zeros(1,length_pos); % 2nd row is suction velocity
SUC = [suc1; suc2];

% set end of loop (only first half of positions->
% upper half of airfoil!!)
i_end = length_pos/2;

% if position is between suction_start and suction_end
% set velocity to -0.001
% Suction from x/c=.70 to x/c=.95
suc_end = 0.95;
suc_start = 0.70;
for i = 1 : i_end
if SUC(1,i)>suc_start && SUC(1,i)<suc_end
SUC(2,i) = -0.001;
end
end

% set suction area!!
suc_area = '7095';
writefilename = [num2str(x,15) '-' num2str(y,15) '.suc']
suctionname = ['Base suction distribution ' num2str(x,15) '-'...
num2str(y,15) '.suc ' 'v/U=-.001 x/c=' num2str(suc_start,15)...
'-' num2str(suc_end,15)]

% First write suctionname to first line of writefilename
fid = fopen(writefilename,'wt');
fprintf(fid,'%s\n',suctionname);
fclose(fid);

% Append suction distribution (matrix SUC) to writefilename
fid = fopen(writefilename,'at');
fprintf(fid,'%f %f\n',SUC);
fclose(fid);
end
end

68 Appendix

C.2 FilterData.M

%==========================================================================
% CreateMatFiles.M
% Read in polar files to MATLAB, creat variables (Alpha CL CD) and filtered
% variables (only store up to CL_max)
%==========================================================================
for x = 1 : 10 % loop for x/c
for y = 1 : 10 % loop for t/c
for s = 0 : 1: 6 % loop for suction scale factor

% clear existing polar variables
clear Alpha CL CD Re CM Top_Xtr ...
Bot_Xtr Dp Alpha_new CL_new CD_new

% create textfilename (x-y.plr) to read file
textfilename = [num2str(x,15) '-' num2str(y,15)...
'-s' num2str(s,15) '.splr']

% try, catch, end: for error handling
try

% read x-y.plr file with 8 variables and 13 text lines
[Alpha CL CD Re CM Top_Xtr Bot_Xtr Dp] = ...
textread(textfilename,'%f %f %f %f %f %f %f %f',...
'headerlines',13);

% filter Cl values, only store for increasing Cl
q = length(CL);
CL_fil(1,1) = CL(1);
CD_fil(1,1) = CD(1);
Alpha_fil(1,1) = Alpha(1);
for r = 2:q
if CL(r) > CL(r-1)
CL_fil(r,1) = CL(r);
CD_fil(r,1) = CD(r);
Alpha_fil(r,1) = Alpha(r);
else
break
end
end

% create savefilename to save to .mat file (x-y.mat)
savefilename = [num2str(x,15) '-' num2str(y,15) '-v' ...
num2str(s,15) '-soiled']

% save desired variables (Alpha, CL, CD)
save (savefilename, 'Alpha', 'CL', 'CD',...
'Alpha_fil', 'CL_fil', 'CD_fil')
% OUTPUT: X-Y-vS-soiled-fil.mat
% [Alpha, CL, CD (_fil)]
% X = 1:10, Y=1:10, S=1:6
catch
end
end
end
end

Appendix 69


%==========================================================================
% CreatTotalPolarsMat(-fil).M
% Combine polars of different suction velocities, find for each alpha
% biggest v/U possible and store only that point. This is done for each
% step of v/U, thus creating only one polar for each v/U.
% Note: has to run separately for unfiltered results if desired
%==========================================================================
clear all
for x = 1 : 10 % loop for x/c
for y = 1 : 10 % loop for t/c
for v = 0:1:6 % loop for v/U

% create empty vectors
Alpha_tot = [];
CL_tot = [];
CD_tot = [];
for s = 0 : 1: v
clear Alpha CL CD Alpha_fil CL_fil CD_fil

% create textfilename to read .M-file (Alpha,CL,CD)
openfilename = [num2str(x,15) '-' num2str(y,15) '-v'...
num2str(s,15) '-soiled-fil']

% try, catch, end: for error handling
try
load(openfilename)
% store current alpha, Cl and Cd
Alpha_tot = [Alpha_tot;Alpha_fil];
CL_tot = [CL_tot;CL_fil];
CD_tot = [CD_tot;CD_fil];
catch
end
end

% create empty vectors
ALPHA =[];
CL = [];
CD = [];
for a = 0: 0.5: 20
% find indices for alpha
index = find(Alpha_tot == a);

% find index with highest suction velocity
index_max = max(index);

% set Cl and Cd for alpha with highest suction velocity
ALPHA_NEW = Alpha_tot(index_max);
CL_NEW = CL_tot(index_max);
CD_NEW = CD_tot(index_max);

% store current alpha, Cl and Cd
ALPHA =[ALPHA;ALPHA_NEW];
CL = [CL;CL_NEW];
CD = [CD;CD_NEW] ;
end
savefilename = [num2str(x,15) '-' num2str(y,15)...
'-TOTAL-v' num2str(v,15) '-soiled-fil']
save (savefilename, 'ALPHA', 'CL', 'CD')
70 Appendix

% OUTPUT: X-Y-TOTAL-vS-soiled-fil.mat
% [ALPHA, CL, CD]
% X = 1:10, Y=1:10, S=1:6
end
end
end

%==========================================================================
% CreateResultsMatrixTOTALMat.M
% Construct matrices from 10x10 airfoils (x-y):
% - Cl/Cd_max with Alpha and Cl
% - Cl_max with Alpha
% - Cl_dif (= Cl_max - Cl_design)
% - Alpha_dif (= Alpha_max - Alpha_design)
%==========================================================================
clear all
clcd_max(10,10)=0;
cl_clcdmax(10,10)=0;
alpha_clcdmax(10,10)=0;
cl_max(10,10)=0;
cl_dif(10,10)=0;
alpha_clmax(10,10)=0;
alpha_dif(10,10)=0;
cl_design(10,10)=0;
alpha_design(10,10)=0;
clcd_design(10,10)=0;
for s = 0:6 % Suction velocity
for n = 1:10 % length(x) = n
for m = 1:10 % length(y) = m

clear ALPHA CL CD

% create textfilename (x-y-c) to load file
textfilename = [num2str(n,15) '-' num2str(m,15) '-TOTAL-v'...
num2str(s,15) '-soiled-FIL']

% Error handling
try
% load x-y-c.mat = l-m-c.mat
load(textfilename);

% calculate Cl/Cd
clcd = (CL./CD);

% locate Cl/Cd_max and its index number
[clcdmax,clcdmaxindex] = max(clcd);

% store Cl/Cd_max for this airfoil
clcd_max(m,n)=clcdmax;

% store Cl at Cl/Cd_max for this airfoil
cl_clcdmax(m,n) = CL(clcdmaxindex);

% store alpha at Cl/Cd_max for this airfoil
alpha_clcdmax(m,n) = ALPHA(clcdmaxindex);

Appendix 71

% locate Cl_max with index number
[clmax,clmaxindex] = max(CL);

% store Cl_max for this airfoil
cl_max(m,n) = clmax;

% store Cl difference (Cl_max - Cl_design)
cl_dif(m,n) = clmax - cl_clcdmax(m,n);

% store alpha at Cl_max for this airfoil
alpha_clmax(m,n) = ALPHA(clmaxindex);

% store alpha difference
alpha_dif(m,n) = alpha_clmax(m,n) - alpha_clcdmax(m,n);

% alternative cl_design = cl_alt:
% Cl at which Cl/Cd > Cl/Cl_original AND difference with its Cl_max > 0.2
% Cl_dif = Cl_max - Cl_alt = 0.2
% Cl_alt = Cl_max - 0.2
% CL/CD(Cl_alt) > CL/CD_original -> new criteria

% find index CL for cl_des with Cl_alt = Cl_max - 0.2
CL_alt = clmax - 0.2;
clindex = find(CL_alt>CL(1:clmaxindex),1,'last');
% store alpha, CL, CL/CD at CL_alt
cl_alt(m,n) = CL(clindex);
alpha_alt(m,n) = ALPHA(clindex);
clcd_alt(m,n) = clcd(clindex);
catch
end
end
end
savefilename = ['ResultMatrix-TOTAL-v' num2str(s,15) '-soiled-fil']
save(savefilename, 'clcd_max', 'cl_clcdmax', 'alpha_clcdmax',...
'cl_max', 'cl_dif', 'alpha_clmax', 'alpha_dif', 'cl_alt',...
'alpha_alt', 'clcd_alt')
% OUTPUT: ResultsMatrix-TOTAL-vS-soiled-fil.mat
% Matrices of 10*10 of all data for each suction velocity
% X = 1:10, Y=1:10, S=1:6
end

72 Appendix

C.3 MATLAB example data

clcd_max =

Columns 1 through 5

161.2207 151.7559 148.8401 149.1667 128.0426
168.2389 165.3907 154.9745 146.1102 161.9959
176.7338 170.7478 162.9937 163.8294 164.2830
182.5134 179.7234 176.0752 171.6393 159.8957
188.0278 186.9041 179.3478 171.2809 164.1402
191.1794 189.6565 181.2650 173.7659 175.7437
193.3095 191.4145 183.0591 175.9728 175.8045
191.3734 186.9722 178.9560 172.2978 166.8831
184.0446 178.2220 174.2066 164.3876 145.6906
173.4516 160.8226 155.0182 131.6646 89.6871

Columns 6 through 10

152.7335 172.1963 0 112.3294 158.3161
131.2391 170.4619 170.8333 112.6139 109.1388
148.3164 143.9871 172.3326 144.1538 93.6770
175.9506 143.9683 158.6437 156.8980 0
177.9099 154.2240 136.4428 147.5092 49.2602
179.6741 165.5422 127.6557 68.6340 31.6851
173.7559 149.9078 92.7907 36.0241 24.3335
157.5816 90.8169 43.3645 25.9863 19.8167
90.4745 46.2875 42.9615 20.1333 14.6240
47.4159 43.7048 23.7803 17.1489 11.8126

Appendix 73

D Structural properties tables

Table D-1: Lay-up description[14]
Layer ID Material name Label Radius Nr of layers Thickness per layer Total thickness
[m] [-] [mm] [mm]
TRIAX-1 UD45R 2.0 3 0.94 2.82
TRIAX-1 UD45R 63.5 3 0.94 2.82
UD UD_OB K 29.0 172 0.47 80.94
UD_TE UD_OB U 14.0 29 0.47 13.60
UD_TE UD_OB V 47.0 1 0.47 0.47
SKINFOAM SKINFOAM X 7.5 40.00
SKINFOAM SKINFOAM Y 43.0 40.00
TRIAX-3 UD45R 2.0 3 0.94 2.82
TRIAX-3 UD45R 63.5 3 0.94 2.82

Table D-2: Material properties [14]
Nr. Material name E11 E22 G12 nu12 density
[MPa] [MPa] [MPa] [-] [kg/m
3
]
1 UD_OB 38887 9000 3600 0.249 1869
2 UD45R 24800 11500 4861 0.416 1826
3 R4545 11700 11700 9770 0.501 1782
4 SKINFOAM 256 256 22 0.300 200
5 WEBPS 25 25 12 0.300 45

Appendix 75

E Structural lay-up pictures

Figure E-1: Blade profile lay-out [14]
76 Appendix


Figure E-2: Blade laminate lay-up [14]
Appendix 77


Figure E-3: Profile lay-out example [14]

Figure E-4: Ply angle definition [2]

Appendix 79

F PreComp example input files

F.1 Main Input File: DU25.pci

***************** main input file for PreComp *****************************
DU25 Composite Blade Section Properties

General information -----------------------------------------------
1 Bl_length : blade length (m)
2 N_sections : no of blade sections (-)
5 N_materials : no of materials listed in the materials table (material.inp)
3 Out_format : output file (1: general format, 2: BModes-format, 3: both)
f TabDelim (true: tab-delimited table; false: space-delimited table)

Blade-sections-specific data --------------------------------------
Sec span l.e. chord aerodynamic af_shape int str layup
location position length twist file file
Span_loc Le_loc Chord Tw_aero Af_shape_file Int_str_file
(-) (-) (m) (degrees) (-) (-)

0.0000 0.38 3.950 0.00 'af-du25.inp' 'int-du25.inp'
1.0000 0.38 3.950 0.00 'af-du25.inp' 'int-du25.inp'

Webs (spars) data --------------------------------------------------

3 Nweb : number of webs (-) ! enter 0 if the blade has no webs
1 Ib_sp_stn : blade station number where inner-most end of webs is located
(-)
2 Ob_sp_stn : blade station number where outer-most end of webs is located
(-)

Web_num Inb_end_ch_loc Oub_end_ch_loc (fraction of chord length)
1 0.28 0.28
2 0.48 0.48
3 1.00 1.00

F.2 Airfoil Data File: af-du25.inp

54 N_af_nodes :no of airfoil nodes, counted clockwise starting
with leading edge (see users' manual, fig xx)

Xnode Ynode !! chord-normalized coordinated of the airfoil nodes
0.00E+00 0.00E+00 !! the first node, a leading-edge node, must be (0,0)
0.00043 0.00553
0.00281 0.01348
0.00773 0.02130
0.01466 0.02925
0.02371 0.03760
0.03537 0.04659
0.05045 0.05645
0.07015 0.06741
0.09594 0.07949
0.12904 0.09226
0.16931 0.10467
0.21497 0.11538
0.26374 0.12332
0.31393 0.12791
0.36525 0.12868
0.41936 0.12564
0.47662 0.11945
0.53667 0.11050
0.59893 0.09918
80 Appendix

0.66299 0.08594
0.72862 0.07119
0.79504 0.05546
0.86107 0.03927
0.92291 0.02374
0.97374 0.01061
1.00000 0.00325
1.00000 -0.00325
0.97432 0.00134
0.93259 0.00703
0.88960 0.00879
0.84525 0.00612
0.79916 -0.00105
0.75024 -0.01301
0.69665 -0.02979
0.63780 -0.05035
0.57811 -0.07102
0.52124 -0.08880
0.46710 -0.10289
0.41466 -0.11311
0.36305 -0.11960
0.31253 -0.12247
0.26354 -0.12161
0.21654 -0.11711
0.17270 -0.10939
0.13356 -0.09917
0.10056 -0.08767
0.07415 -0.07610
0.05368 -0.06514
0.03795 -0.05483
0.02586 -0.04504
0.01654 -0.03576
0.00943 -0.02696
0.00437 -0.01845

F.3 Internal Structure Data File: int-du25.inp

Composite laminae lay-up inside the blade section

*************************** TOP SURFACE ****************************
5 N_scts(1): no of sectors on top surface

normalized chord location of nodes defining airfoil sectors boundaries (xsec_node)
0.0 0.28 0.48 0.80 0.95 1.00
..................................................................
Sect_num no of laminae (N_laminas)
1 3

lamina num of thickness fibers_direction composite_material ID
number plies of ply (m) (deg) (-)
lam_num N_plies Tply Tht_lam Mat_id
1 3 0.000940 45 2 (UD45R)
2 1 0.040 0 4 (SKINFOAM)
3 3 0.000940 45 2 (UD45R)
..................................................................
Sect_num no of laminae
2 3

1 3 0.000940 45 2 (UD45R)
2 172 0.00047 0 1 (UD_OB)
3 3 0.000940 45 2 (UD45R)
..................................................................
3 3

Appendix 81

1 3 0.000940 45 2 (UD45R)
2 1 0.040 0 4 (SKINFOAM)
3 3 0.000940 45 2 (UD45R)
..................................................................
4 3

1 3 0.000940 45 2 (UD45R)
2 16.3 0.00047 0 1 (UD_OB)
3 3 0.000940 45 2 (UD45R)
..................................................................
5 1

1 6 0.000940 45 2 (UD45R)

*************************** BOTTOM SURFACE ****************************
5 N_scts(2): no of sectors on bottom surfaces

normalized chord location of nodes defining airfoil sectors boundaries (xsec_node)
0.0 0.28 0.48 0.80 0.95 1.00
..................................................................
Sect_num no of laminae (N_laminas)
1 3

1 3 0.000940 45 2 (UD45R)
2 1 0.040 0 4 (SKINFOAM)
3 3 0.000940 45 2 (UD45R)
..................................................................
2 3

1 3 0.000940 45 2 (UD45R)
2 172 0.00047 0 1 (UD_OB)
3 3 0.000940 45 2 (UD45R)
..................................................................
3 3

1 3 0.000940 45 2 (UD45R)
2 1 0.040 0 4 (SKINFOAM)
3 3 0.000940 45 2 (UD45R))
..................................................................
4 3

1 3 0.000940 45 2 (UD45R)
2 16.3 0.00047 0 1 (UD_OB)
3 3 0.000940 45 2 (UD45R)
..................................................................
5 1

1 6 0.000940 45 2 (UD45R)
82 Appendix


**********************************************************************
Laminae schedule for webs (input required only if webs exist at this section):

web_num no of laminae (N_weblams)
1 3

wlam_num N_Plies w_tply Tht_Wlam Wmat_Id
1 2 0.00153 45 3 (R4545)
2 1 0.050 0 5 (WEBPS)
3 2 0.00153 45 3 (R4545)

web_num no of laminae
2 3

1 2 0.00153 45 3 (R4545)
2 1 0.050 0 5 (WEBPS)
3 2 0.00153 45 3 (R4545)

web_num no of laminae
3 1

1 6 0.000940 45 2 (UD45R)

F.4 Materials Data File: materials.inp

Mat_Id E1 E2 G12 Nu12 Density Mat_Name
(-) (Pa) (Pa) (Pa) (-) (Kg/m^3) (-)

1 38.9e+9 9.0e+9 3.6e+9 0.25 1869.0 (UD_OB)
2 24.8e+9 11.5e+9 4.9e+9 0.42 1826.0 (UD45R)
3 11.7e+9 11.7e+9 9.8e+9 0.50 1782.0 (R4545)
4 25.6e+7 25.6e+7 2.2e+7 0.30 200.0 (SKINFOAM)
5 2.5e+7 2.5e+7 1.2e+7 0.30 45.0 (WEBPS)

Appendix 83

G PreComp example output files

G.1 BModes Output File: du25.out_bmd

==================================================================================
Results generated by PreComp (v1.00.01, 03-Aug-2006) on 07-Oct-2009 at 14:04:58.
DU25 Composite Blade Section Properties
==================================================================================

blade length (meters) = 1.00

span_loc str_tw tw_iner mass_den flp_iner edge_iner flp_stff
(-) (deg) (deg) (kg/m) (kg-m) (kg-m) (Nm^2)
0.0000 2.011 1.712 0.4089E+03 0.5839E+02 0.3137E+03 0.1028E+10
1.0000 2.011 1.712 0.4089E+03 0.5839E+02 0.3137E+03 0.1028E+10

edge_stff tor_stff axial_stff cg_offst sc_offst tc_offst
(Nm^2) (Nm^2) (N) (m) (m) (m)
0.3299E+10 0.1093E+09 0.6314E+10 0.283 0.158 0.225
0.3299E+10 0.1093E+09 0.6314E+10 0.283 0.158 0.225

Appendix 85

H Pressure gradient in a closed rotating duct

The targeted duct is a closed rotating rectangular straight duct. One end of the duct is in the centre
of rotation, the other end, further referred as tip, is rotating in a circle with radius r, the length of the
duct. The tip speed, V
tip
, is calculated by:

tip
V r e = (H.1)

with the angular velocity in rad/s. The volume of air enclosed by the duct is:

Volume length width height r width height = = (H.2)

And the mass of this volume is therefore:

m r width height = (H.3)

The centre of this mass lies at 0.5r. The centrifugal force, F
c
, is therefore:

2
0.5
c
F m r e = (H.4)

The centrifugal force will cause a pressure gradient between the two ends of the duct, interest is in
calculating this pressure gradient and thereby the maximum under pressure that can be generated in
the duct.

( )
c
p width height F A = (H.5)

With (width height) being the cross section of the duct. Substituting above equation leads to:
86 Appendix


c
F
p
width height
A =
(H.6)

( )
2
0.5 r width height r
p
width height
e
A =
(H.7)

( )
2
0.5 p r e A = (H.8)

or

2
0.5
tip
p V A = (H.9)

With help Bernoulli equation

2
1
2
V gh p constant + + = (H.10)

the inside pressure becomes

( ) ( )
2 2 1 1
2 2
R gR r gr
| | | |
O O
`
| |
\ . \ . )
(H.11)

The outside pressure at the suction area is

2
1
2
rel P
V C (H.12)

Bibliography

[1] J. Bink, "Basic Pressure Gradient Calculation in a Closed Rotating Duct," Actiflow B.V., Breda,
2009.
[2] G.S. Bir, "User's Guide to PreComp (Pre-Processor for Computing Composite Blade Properties),"
National Renewable Energy Laboratory, USA, 2005.
[3] G. van Bussel et al., "Rotor Aerodynamics AE4-W012, Lecture notes," Delft University of
Technology, Delft, 2008.
[4] H. Chen, W. Yu, and M. Capellaro, "A Critical Assessment of Computer Tools for Calculating
Composite Wind Turbine Blade Properties," 2009.
[5] M. Drela, "XFOIL 6.94 User Guide," 2001.
[6] M. Drela, "XFOIL: An Analysis and Design System for Low Reynolds Number Airfoils.," 1989.
[7] J.H. Goei, "Design study of laminar flow airfoils for application to low-subsonic transport
aircraft," Delft University of Technology, Delft, 1983.
[8] M.O.L. Hansen, Aerodynamics of Wind Turbines. London: James & James, 2000.
[9] J.L. van Ingen, J.J.H. Blom, and J.H. Goei, "Design studies of thick laminar-flow airfoils for low
speed flight employing turbulent boundary layer suction over the rear part," Delft University of
Technology, Delft, 1985.
[10] P.J. van Langen, "Aeroelastic analysis of the UpWind reference wind turbine," ECN, Petten, ECN-
E--07-000, 2007.
[11] J. Lousberg, "Boundary Layer Control in Wind Turbine desing: A Preliminary Study of the
Potential for Application," Actiflow B.V., Master's Thesis 2008.
[12] J.L. Meriam and L.G. Kraige, Enginering Mechanics: Statics. USA: John Wiley & Sons, Inc, 1998.
[13] Microsoft Corporation. (2009, Mar.) VBScript User's Guide. [Online].
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/sx7b3k7y(VS.85).aspx
[14] R. Nijssen, G.D. de Winkel, and J.M. Peeringa, "UpWind WMC5MW laminate data," WMC,
Wieringerwerf, 2007.
[15] PreComp. (2007, March) NWTC Design Codes. [Online].
http://wind.nrel.gov/designcodes/preprocessors/precomp/
[16] R.P.J.O.M. van Rooij, "Aerodynamic design for a pitch regulated rotor," Delft University of

Technology, Delft, WE-01172, 2001.
[17] R.P.J.O.M. van Rooij, "Modification of the boundary layer calculation in RFOIL for improved
airfoil stall prediction," Delft University of Technology, Delft, IW-96087R, 1996.
[18] R.P.J.O.M. van Rooij and W.A. Timmer, "Roughness sensitivity considerations for thick rotor
blade airfoils," Delft University of Technology, Netherlands, AIAA-2003-0350, 2003.
[19] W.A. Timmer and R.P.J.O.M. van Rooij, "Summary of the Delft University wind turbine dedicated
airfoils," Delft University of Technology, Netherlands, AIAA-2003-0352, 2003.
[20] Various Authors, "UpWind Reference Wind Turbine Version 009," 2007.
[21] P.S. Veers et al., "Trends in the Design, Manufacturing and Evaluation of Wind Turbine Blades,"
USA, 2003.

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Master of Science Thesis

Boundary Layer Suction on a Horizontal Axis

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