A Particle Image Velocimetry study of dual-rotor counter-rotating wind turbine near wake

Hollands, EO.; He, C.; Gan, L.

Abstract

This experimental work studied the flow characteristics in the near wake region behind dual-rotor wind turbines using two-dimensional particle image velocimetry. Two auxiliary rotors of 50% and 80% scale of the main rotor were installed upwind and operated in counter-rotating condition, which are compared to the conventional single rotor turbine. In all the three configurations, a constant Reynolds number 9.5×104 was applied and all the rotors operated at a fixed tip speed ratio of 3.46. The mean and phase averaged velocity fields were investigated together with the turbulence kinetic energy. It was found that the two auxiliary rotors do not result in a significantly different wake flow property. The configuration implementing the 50% auxiliary rotor sees a slightly better wake characteristics, in terms of weaker main rotor tip vortices and a counter-rotating swirling shear region at the mid-span behind the main rotor. The decay rates of the peak vorticity of the main rotor tip vortices and their circulation are found to follow an exponential manner.

Citation

Hollands, E., He, C., & Gan, L. (2020). A Particle Image Velocimetry study of dual-rotor counter-rotating wind turbine near wake. Journal of Visualization, 23(3), 425-435. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12650-020-00643-0

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Acceptance Date: Oct 3, 2019
• Online Publication Date: Mar 31, 2020
• Publication Date: Jun 30, 2020
• Deposit Date: Oct 27, 2019
• Publicly Available Date: Apr 23, 2020
• Journal: Journal of Visualization
• Print ISSN: 1343-8875
• Electronic ISSN: 1875-8975
• Publisher: Springer
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 23
• Issue: 3
• Pages: 425-435
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12650-020-00643-0
• Public URL: https://durham-repository.worktribe.com/output/1286652