Investigation of the Flow Over NACA 63-415 Airfoil

Authors : Onur ERKAN, Musa OZKAN

Pages : 50-56

Doi:10.34248/bsengineering.643916

View : 12 | Download : 4

Publication Date : 2020-04-01

Article Type : Research Paper

Abstract :In this article, a two-dimensional, incompressible flow around a NACA 63-415 airfoil, which is widely used as one of the commercial wind turbine blade profiles, is investigated. The goal of this research is to obtain the optimum angle of attack for this particular type of airfoil within a precise range. The Reynolds-Averaged Navier-Stokes insert ignore into journalissuearticles values(RANS); technique of Computational Fluid Dynamics insert ignore into journalissuearticles values(CFD); has been employed to examine the flow where the Reynolds number is in the range of 10 5 to 3x10 6 and also for the angles of attack from 0° to 20°. These are the typical flow conditions mostly encountered in the real applications of wind turbine blades. The turbulent flow is modelled by means of the Spalart-Allmaras turbulence model since its capability of simulating aerodynamic flows. The ratio of the lift force to the drag force acting on the airfoil has been chosen as a control parameter since the lift force increases the power generated by the turbine, whereas the drag force negatively affects the performance. The present numerical result shows that the maximum lift to drag ratio is observed between 2.5° and 3.5°, depending on the Reynolds number.
Keywords : Angle of attack, CFD, NACA airfoil, Renewable energy, Spalart Allmaras model, Wind turbines