The Wind Turbine Airfoil Catalogue gathers experimental and numerical data related to the aerodynamic characteristics of various airfoils relevant for wind turbine applications. These data can be freely downloaded. In addition, the data are compared and used in order to analyze the numerical codes used for the calculations.
The aim of this work is two-sided. Firstly, experimental results obtained for numerous sets of airfoils measurements (mainly intended for wind turbine applications) are collected and compared with computational results from the 2D Navier-Stokes solver EllipSys2D, as well as results from the panel method code XFOIL. Secondly, we are interested in validating the code EllipSys2D and finding out for which airfoils it does not perform well compared to experiments, as well as why when it does so. The airfoils are classified according to the agreement between the numerical results and experimental data. A study correlating the available data and this classification is performed. It is found that transition modelling is to a large extent responsible for the poor quality of the computational results for most of the considered airfoils. The transition model mechanism that leads to these discrepancies is identified. Some advices are given for elaborating future airfoil design processes that would involve the numerical code EllipSys2D in particular, and transition modelling in general.
Publication:
Wind Turbine Airfoil Catalogue, F. Bertagnolio, N. Sørensen, J. Johansen and P. Fuglsang, RISØ-R-1280(EN), August 2001.
Completed