In the analysis and design of wind turbines, aeroelastic analysis is required that considers elastic structure and control in addition to aerodynamic characteristics. In recent years, with the increase in size and reduction in the cost of wind turbines, problems have emerged that cannot be addressed with the standard analysis methods. The accuracy of the Blade Element and Momentum (BEM) theory, which is the most common aerodynamic analysis and design theory, is reduced in conditions where three-dimensional effects such as radial flow are not negligible. Furthermore, full-model Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD), which is commonly used for complex aerodynamic problems, is not applicable for the design calculation of wind turbines considering itscomputational demands. To address these challenges, the Actuator Line Model (ALM) can be utilized as practical load analysis methods that account for structural elasticity, control, and fluctuating winds—offering a level of fidelity between both approaches. However, the conventional ALM does not account for the stall delay (SD) observed in the inboard section of rotor. In this study, an ALM based on CFD is developed by incorporating Snel’s stall delay model, which was developed for BEM. Additionally, the use of the NREL 5 MW reference wind turbine rotor results in the load distribution of the inboard section of this developed model to be comparable to that of the full-model CFD; however, a similar observation is not made for the conventional BEM.
Matsuoka et al. (Tue,) studied this question.