international journal of hydrogen energy 35 (2010) 60056011

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Numerical simulations of the aerodynamic behavior of large

horizontal-axis wind turbines
C.G. Gebhardt a,c,*, S. Preidikman a,b,c, J.C. Massa a,b
a

Departamento de Estructuras, Facultad de Ciencias Exactas Fsicas y Naturales, Universidad Nacional de Cordoba,
Av. Velez Sarsfield N 1611, CP 5000, Cordoba, Argentina
b
Departamento de Mecanica, Facultad de Ingeniera, Universidad Nacional de Ro, Cuarto, Ruta Nacional 36, Km 601,
CP 5800, Ro Cuarto, Argentina
c
Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Cientficas y Tecnicas, Avenida Rivadavia 1917, CP C1033AAJ,
Ciudad de Buenos Aires, Argentina

article info

abstract

Article history:

In the present work, the non-linear and unsteady aerodynamic behavior of large hori-

Received 23 November 2009

zontal-axis wind turbines is analyzed. The flowfield around the wind turbine is simu-

Accepted 17 December 2009

lated with the general non-linear unsteady vortex-lattice method, widely used in

Available online 4 January 2010

aerodynamics. By using this technique, it is possible to compute the aerodynamic loads

and their evolution in the time domain. The results presented in this paper help to

Keywords:

understand how the existence of the landsurface boundary layer and the presence of

Large horizontal-axis

the turbine support tower, affect its aerodynamic efficiency. The capability to capture

wind turbines

these phenomena is a novel aspect of the computational tool developed in the present

Unsteady aerodynamics

effort.

Vortex-lattice method

1.

2009 Professor T. Nejat Veziroglu. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Introduction

With increasing environmental concern, and approaching

limits to fossil fuel consumption, alternative and clean sources of energy have regained interest. Among the several
energy sources being explored, wind energy a form of solar
energy shows much promise in selected areas of Argentina
where the average wind speeds are high.
The utilization of the energy in the winds requires the
development of devices which convert that energy into more
useful forms. Wind turbines are used to generate electricity
from the kinetic energy of the wind. In order to capture this
energy and convert it to electrical energy, one needs to have
a device that is capable of touching the wind. This device, or

turbine, is usually composed of three major parts: the rotor

blades, the drivetrain (if there is one), and the generator. The
blades are the part of the turbine that touches the wind and
rotates about an axis. Extracting energy from the wind is
typically accomplished by first mechanically converting the
velocity of the wind into a rotational motion of the wind
turbine by means of the rotor blades, and then converting the
rotational energy of the rotor blades into electrical energy by
using a generator. The amount of available energy which the
wind transfers to the rotor depends on the mass density of the
air, the sweep area of the rotor blades, and the wind speed.
The actual amount of energy extracted from the airstream by
the wind turbine strongly depends on its aerodynamic efficiency. In this respect, this paper is going to increase the

* Corresponding author. Departamento de Estructuras, Facultad de Ciencias Exactas Fsicas y Naturales, Universidad Nacional de
Cordoba, Av. Velez Sarsfield N 1611, CP 5000, Cordoba, Argentina. Tel.: 54 351 4334141x163.
E-mail address: cgebhardt@efn.uncor.edu (C.G. Gebhardt).
0360-3199/$ see front matter 2009 Professor T. Nejat Veziroglu. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.ijhydene.2009.12.089

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international journal of hydrogen energy 35 (2010) 60056011

capabilities in the area of large horizontal-axis wind turbines

(LHAWT) design by enhancing the ability to accurately predict
their aerodynamic efficiency.
If the rotor blades are considered to be very thin, the speed
very low subsonic, and the Reynolds number large, the
boundary layers on their upper and lower surfaces can be
treated as vortex sheets and merged into a single sheet, which
lies on the camber (i.e., the middle) surface of the rotor blades.
Although the vorticity is generated in the boundary layers by
viscous stresses, there is a kinematic relationship between
vorticity and the velocity field that surrounds it, which is valid
whether viscous effects are explicitly modeled or not. This
relationship enables one to express the disturbance velocity in
terms of the vorticity. These hypotheses allow predicting the
aerodynamic loads by using the unsteady and non-linear
version of the vortex-lattice method (UVLM).
The main objective of this work is to develop a fundamental understanding of the non-linear and unsteady aerodynamic behavior of large horizontal-axis wind turbines. To
accomplish this objective, the authors have developed
comprehensive computational tools that can be used for
predicting the uncontrolled and controlled responses of
LHAWT. These numerical tools will provide the accuracy
needed during the design, development, testing, and deployment of LHAWT.

2.

The aerodynamic model

2.1.

The mathematical problem

Consider a 3D incompressible flow of an inviscid fluid generated due to the unsteady motion of the rotor blades. The
absolute velocity of a fluid particle which occupies the position R at instant t is denoted by V(R;t). Since the flow is irrotational outside the boundary layers and the wakes, the
velocity field can be expressed as the gradient of a total
velocity potential FR; t as follows:
VR; t VFR; t

Fig. 1 Wake evolution neglecting the presence of the

turbine support tower.

motion of the body (or bodies) through the fluid, should

diminish far from the body. This is usually called the regularity condition at infinity and is given by
lim jVR; tj lim jVFR; tj 0

jRj/N

jRj/N

Since the disturbance velocity field is computed according

to the Biot-Savart law, the regularity condition at infinity is
satisfied identically. For incompressible potential flows, the
velocity field is determined from the continuity equation,
and hence, it may be established independently of the
pressure. Once the velocity field is known, the pressure is
calculated from the unsteady Bernoulli equation. Moreover,
since the speed of sound is assumed to be infinite, the
influence of the BCs is immediately radiated across the
whole fluid region; therefore, the instantaneous velocity field
is obtained from the instantaneous BCs. In addition to the
BCs, the KelvinHelmholtz theorems [4] and the unsteady
Kutta condition are used to determine the strength and
position of the wakes.
The integral representation of the velocity field V(R;t) in
terms of the vorticity field UR; t V  VR; t, is an extension

(1)

The spatial/temporal evolution of the total velocity potential is governed by the continuity equation for incompressible
flows.
V2 Fr; t 0

(2)

A set of boundary conditions (BCs) must be added [13]. The

location of the bodys surface is known, possibly as a function
of time, and the normal component of the fluid velocity is
prescribed on this boundary. The first BC requires the normal
component of the velocity of the fluid relative to the body to be
zero at the boundaries of the body. This BC, commonly called
the no-penetration or impermeability BC (on the surface of
the solid surface), becomes:
b VF  VS $ n
b 0
V  VS $ n

(3)

b is the
where VS is the velocity of the boundary surface S, and n
b vary in space and
unit normal vector. In general, VS and n
time. A regularity condition at infinity must also be imposed.
This second BC requires that the flow disturbance, due to the

(4)

Fig. 2 Wake evolution considering the presence of the

turbine support tower.

international journal of hydrogen energy 35 (2010) 60056011

6007

another due to the free-vortex sheet FW . Hence, Eq. (3) can be

rewritten as:
b 0
VFB VFW  VS $ n

2.2.

Fig. 3 Detailed view of the process of wake rupture.

of the well-known Biot-Savart law. For 3D flows, it takes the

following form:
VR; t

1
4p

Z Z
SR0 ;t

UR0 ; t  R  R0
jR  R0 j2

dSR0 ; t

(5)

where R0 is a position vector on the compact region S(R0;t) of

the fluid domain. The integrand in the surface integral (5) is
zero wherever U(R;t) vanishes. Thus, the region where the
flow is irrotational does not contribute to V anywhere. V can
be evaluated explicitly at each point, i.e., independently of the
evaluation of V at neighboring points. As a consequence of
this feature, which is absent in finite difference methods, the
evaluation of V can be confined to the viscous region; the
vorticity distribution in the viscous region determines the flowfield in
both, the viscous and inviscid regions.
In order to formulate the no-penetration BC given by
Equation (3) it is convenient to divide the total velocity potential
FR; t into two parts, due to the bound-vortex sheet FB and

(6)

The unsteady vortex-lattice method

In the UVLM, the continuous bound-vortex sheets are discretized into a lattice of short, straight vortex segments of
constant circulation Gi t. These segments divide the surface of
the body into a number of elements of area. The model is
completed by joining free-vortex lines, representing the
continuous free-vortex sheets, to the bound-vortex lattice
along the edges of separation; such as the trailing edges and
tips of the rotor blades. Experience with the vortex-lattice
method suggests that the geometric shape of the elements in
the lattice affects the accuracy and the rate of convergence. It
was found that rectangular elements work better than other
shapes. Consequently, as much as possible we use rectangular,
or nearly rectangular, elements everywhere except in those
places where we are forced to use triangular elements: for
example, at the hub of the windmill. Each element of area in
the lattice is enclosed by a loop of vortex segments. To reduce
the size of the problem, we can consider each element to be
enclosed by a closed loop of vortex segments having the same
circulation. Then the requirement of spatial conservation of
circulation is automatically satisfied. These loop circulations
are denoted by Gi(t). Because the vortex sheets are approximated by a lattice, the no-penetration condition given by Eqs.
(3) or (6) can be satisfied at only a finite number of points, the
so-called control points. The control points are the centroids of
the corner points (aerodynamic nodes). The problem consists
of finding the circulations Gi(t) around the discrete vortices on
the bound-lattice such that the velocity field V satisfies conditions (3) or (6) at the control points. In order to find these
circulations, we construct a matrix of aerodynamic influence
coefficients Aij for i; j 1; 2; .; NP where NP is the number of
elements (closed loops of constant vorticity) in the boundlattice. The coefficient Aij represents the normal component of
the velocity at the control point of the ith element associated
with a unit circulation around the vortex of element jth, and is

Fig. 4 Time evolution of the axial force. Influence of the turbine support tower.

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international journal of hydrogen energy 35 (2010) 60056011

Fig. 5 Time evolution of the produced power. Influence of the turbine support tower.

in general a function of time. In terms of the coefficients Aij

[6,5], the no-penetration condition given by Equation (6) can be
written as follows:

This approximation for the value of DRt does not need iterations and is stable [7].

NP
X

2.3.

b i;
Aij Gj t VFW  VB i $ n

i 1; 2; .; NP

(7)

j1

The linear algebraic system of equations given by Eq. (7) is

used to compute the unknown circulations Gj(t). At the end of
each time step, to satisfy the Kutta condition, vorticity is shed
into the flowfield and become part of the grids that approximate the free-vortex sheets of the wake. Because the vorticity
in the wake now was generated on, and shed from, the body at
an earlier time, the flowfield is history-dependent and so the
current distribution of vorticity on the surface of the body
depends to some extent on the previous distributions of
vorticity. The vorticity distribution in and the shape of the
wake are determined as part of the solution so the history of
the motion is stored in the wake. We say that the wake is the
historian of the flow. As time passes and the vorticity in the
wake convects far downstream, its associated velocity field
does not have any appreciable influence on the flow around
the body; thus, the historian has a fading memory. In the
numerical method, this means that only the wake near to the
body is important; the rest can be safely neglected.
The method developed in this effort treats the position of,
and the distribution of vorticity in, the wakes as unknown and
they are determined as part of the solution. The present
method employs an explicit routine for generating the
unsteady wake (instead of the iterative scheme that was used
previously by some investigators), providing efficiency
without a loss of accuracy and even providing solution for
some cases where the iterative methods did not converge. To
generate the wakes the discrete vortex segments at the trailing edge an the tip of each rotor blade are convected at the
local particle velocity, VRt, calculated from the Biot-Savart
law. The updated positions, Rt Dt, of the vortex points are
computed according to
Rt Dt Rt DRtzRt VRtDt

(8)

Loads computation

The aerodynamics loads acting on the lifting surfaces (rotor

blades) are computed as follows: (i) the pressure jump at the
control point of each element is computed from the unsteady
version of Bernoulli Equation (9); (ii) the force at each area
element is computed as the product among the pressure jump
times the area of the element times the unit normal vector;
(iii) the resultant force and moment are computed as the
vector addition of the forces and moments produced by each
element, respectively.
vF 1
p 1
pN
V$V VN $VN
rN
vt 2
r 2

(9)

The details of each term of Eq. (9) are shown in references

[6, 8, 9].

Fig. 6 Wake evolution neglecting the landsurface

boundary layer.

international journal of hydrogen energy 35 (2010) 60056011

Fig. 7 Wake evolution considering the landsurface

boundary layer.

3.

Results

The results obtained using the computational tool developed

in this effort are presented in this section. First, in Section 3.1
the influence of the turbine support tower is presented; then,
in Section 3.2, the incidence of the landsurface boundary
layer is shown.

3.1.

Influence of the turbine support tower

During the rotational cycle, the blades of a horizontal-axis

wind turbine encounter a region of disturbed inflow when
they pass near the azimuthal position of the turbine support
tower. For upwind rotor configurations this effect is due to the
slowdown and deflection of the flow upstream of the tower
and so its severity depends on the proximity of the rotor disk
to the support tower. If the rotor is far enough upstream of the
tower, the interference effect becomes negligible.
The time and spatial evolution of the wakes, neglecting
and including the presence of the turbine support tower is

6009

presented in Figs. 1 and 2, respectively. In Fig. 2, it is possible

to note how the wakes brake when they impact the turbine
support tower.
Vorticity cannot be created or destroyed in the interior of
a homogeneous fluid under normal conditions, and is
produced (or destroyed) only at the boundaries, where
normal conditions excludes the merger of two streams with
different velocities. For an inviscid fluid, vorticity is convected
with the fluid in the sense that the flux of vorticity associated
with each surface element moving with the fluid remains
constant for all times. When the wakes impact the turbine
support tower, they break because they cannot penetrate the
solid (See Fig. 3). A readjustment of the circulation occurs at
the solid surface.
Fig. 4 shows the time history of the axial force that acts in
a direction perpendicular to the rotor; this load is responsible
for bending effects on the turbine support tower. It is possible
to note that the presence of the turbine support tower
produces an alternating variation in the axial force (dashed
blue line) respect to the value obtained with the model where
the presence of the tower is neglected (solid black line). In both
curves, after the transient, the value of the axial reaches
a constant value. When the turbine support tower is included,
the variation of the axial force undergoes three periods per
revolution of the rotor. This fact is explained because the
blades pass in front of the tower three times per revolution of
the rotor.
The time history of the produced power is shown in Fig. 5.
The situation is similar to that of the axial force.
When designing, we must take these loads variations into
account because they can either produce fatigue in some of
the LHAWT components and/or produce significant dynamic
effects that can compromise the structural integrity of the
wind turbine structure.

3.2.

Incidence of the landsurface boundary layer

Figs. 6 and 7 show the time history of the wakes neglecting

and including the presence of the of the landsurface
boundary layer.
Comparing these two figures, it is possible to note the
difference in the shape of the wakes. When the landsurface

Fig. 8 Time evolution of the axial force. Influence of the landsurface boundary layer.

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international journal of hydrogen energy 35 (2010) 60056011

Fig. 9 Time evolution of the produced power. Influence of the landsurface boundary layer.

boundary layer is neglected, the wake moves uniformly

almost parallel to the landsurface. On the other hand, when
the landsurface boundary layer is included, the wake moves
and deforms in the vertical direction copying the velocity
profile associated to the landsurface boundary layer.
Fig. 8 shows the time evolution of the axial force. It is clear
that the existence of the landsurface boundary layer
produces a reduction in the magnitude of that load (dashed
blue line) with respect to the case where the effect of the land
surface boundary layer is neglected (solid black line). When
the steady state is reached, the reduction in the magnitude of
the axial force is around 3%.
The time history of the produced power is shown in Fig. 9.
The situation is similar to that of the axial force. When the
steady state is reached, the reduction in the produced power is
around 2%.
Figs. 8 and 9 show the variations originated by the presence
of the turbine support tower. This case, which includes the
presence of both the turbine support tower and the land
surface boundary layer, was the most complex situation
analyzed in the present work.
The adopted wind profile to model the landsurface
boundary layer follows the CIRSOC 102 standard [10] where the
wind velocity is a function of altitude and terrain ruggedness.

4.

Concluding remarks

Several results obtained by using the computational tool

developed in this work were presented. The main objective of
this effort was to simulate, in the time domain, the non-linear
and unsteady aerodynamic behavior of large horizontal-axis
wind turbines.
Some important conclusions can be drawn from these
results. Though the aerodynamic behavior is usually not fully
understood, the results presented here help to understand the
aerodynamic behavior associated to LHAWTs, whose
complexity is well-known and accepted.
The aerodynamic interference due to the presence of the
turbine support tower has been satisfactorily captured and in

agreement with results from wind tunnel experiments.

Although the presence of the turbine support tower does not
change the aerodynamic performances of the windmill, this
interference originates alternating load components, which
can produce fatigue in the LHAWT components and/or non
desirable dynamic effects. These aspects were no studied in
detail in the present effort.
The effects produced by the landsurface boundary layer
were also satisfactorily captured. It was shown, that the presence of the landsurface boundary layer reduces the aerodynamic efficiency of the windmill.
Although the computational tool developed in this effort
establishes a good starting point towards a better understanding of the aerodynamic behavior of LHAWTs, it will be
necessary to carry out simulations that include structural
dynamics, control systems, and highly complex environmental conditions that usually take place in the regions where
these machines are installed.

references

[1] Gebhardt CG, Preidikman S, Massa JC, Aerodinamica

inestacionaria y no-lineal de generadores eolicos de gran
potencia y de eje horizontal. Primer Congreso Argentino de
Ingeniera Aeronautica; 2008a.
[2] Gebhardt CG, Preidikman S, Massa JC, Weber GG,
Simulaciones numericas de la aerodinamica no estacionaria
de generadores eolicos de eje horizontal y gran potencia.
Primer Congreso Argentino de Ingeniera Mecanica; 2008b.
[3] Gebhardt CG, Preidikman S, Massa JC, Weber GG.
Comportamiento aerodinamico y aeroelastico de rotores de
generadores eolicos de eje horizontal y de gran potencia.
Mecanica Computacional 2008c;17:51939.
[4] Lugt H. Vortex flow in nature and technology. John Wiley &
Sons; 1983.
[5] Katz J, Plotkin A. In: Low-speed aerodynamics. 2nd ed.
Cambridge University Press; 2001.
[6] Konstandinopoulos P, Mook DT, Nayfeh AH, 1981.
A numerical method for general, unsteady aerodynamics.
AIAA-81-1877.

international journal of hydrogen energy 35 (2010) 60056011

[7] Kandil OA, Mook DT, Nayfeh AH. Non-linear prediction of the
aerodynamic loads on lifting surfaces. Journal of Aircraft
1976;13:228.
[8] Preidikman S, Numerical simulations of interactions among
aerodynamics, structural dynamics, and control systems.
Ph.D. Thesis, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State
University; 1998.

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[9] Preidikman S, Mook DT. Modelado de fenomenos

aeroelasticos lineales y no-lineales: los modelos
aerodinamico y estructural. Modelizacion Aplicada a
la Ingeniera, Regional Bs. As, UTN. I; 2005.
pp. 365388.
[10] CIRSOC 102 Standard. Accion dinamica del viento sobre las
construcciones. INTI-CIRSOC; 1982.