The near wake structure and the development of vorticity behind a model horizontal axis wind turbine

摘要

The wake of a two bladed model HAWT operating at zero yaw angle and in a steady flow in a wind tunnel was measured using hot wire probes. By phase locked averaging and moving the probe axially and radially the full three dimensional mean flow field was determined. All measurements were within two chord lengths of the blades and at tip speed ratios giving high turbine power output, a condition approaching runaway, and a stalled condition. For all tip speed ratios the wakes were significantly three dimensional. Large velocity variations were associated with vortex structures in the wakes, and irrotational fluctuations caused by the blade bound circulation. The vorticity clearly defined the hub and tip vortices that traced helical paths downstream, with the constant tip vortex pitch inversely proportional to tip speed ratio. Close to the blades the flow was complicated, though vortex "roll-up" was completed within one chord length. Considerable changes in wake structure occurred with tip speed ratio. At high power output the wake showed tip and hub vortices connected by a diffuse vortex sheet of mostly radial vorticity from the blade boundary Layers; blade bound circulation was almost constant. The structure approaching runaway was similar though the hub vortex was not well defined and formed a vortex sheet around the hub which lifted away and diffused. The stalled condition was more complicated, with evidence of incomplete tip and hub vortex formation. The streamwise velocity of the tip vortex core decreased with increasing tip speed ratio, but this was never aligned with local streamlines. The core of the tip vortex was not circular but more elliptical. A phase locked averaged angular momentum analysis was undertaken; the extra terms introduced through phase locked averaging were small. Significant angular momentum was associated with the tip vortex at the highest tip speed ratio which lowered the power produced by the rotor suggesting that the tip vortex may become increasingly important as tip speed ratio increases; experiments are currently underway at higher tip speed ratios to investigate this interesting result further.