Fluidic Load Control for Wind Turbine Blades

This paper describes the initial steps into the investigation of the possibility of reducing fatigue loads on wind turbine blades by the application of fluidic jets. This investigation involves static pressure measurements as well as numerical simulations for a non-rotating NACA-0018 airfoil. The fluidic jets are obtained by injecting air from slits located near the trailing edge of the airfoil. The air is injected perpendicularly to the airfoil surface with a velocity of the order of magnitude of the free stream velocity for Re c = 6.6×105, M∞ = 0.176 and a range of angles of attack. A significant change in lift can be observed, although calculated results show a more pronounced effect than the results obtained in the experiments. The calculated change is observed to be nearly constant for angles of attack ranging from -10° to +10°, with approximately 50% of the total change in lift obtained within a dimensionless time of tU ∞/c = 1.