Development and evaluation of a morphing concept for NACA-63418 airfoil for improved wind energy conversion

¹ Department of Mechanical, Industrial, Aeronautical Engineering, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa
² School of Civil, Aerospace and Design Engineering, University of Bristol, Bristol, United Kingdom
³ Department of Mechanical Engineering University of Cape Town, Cape Town, South Africa

^* Corresponding author: molale@lagrangeengineers.com

Abstract

In areas with low winds, generating enough power from wind turbines is a challenging task. In such conditions, efficient conversion of wind kinetic energy is crucial. Therefore, there is a need to develop turbine blades that can dynamically adapt to changes in wind conditions. This work investigates a morphing concept for a HAWT turbine using numerical tools. Q-blade, a solver package based on potential flow and blade element momentum theories, is used to calculate power produced from a simulated morphing rotor and compared to a baseline rigid rotor. ANSYS Fluent, a commercial finite volume CFD solver, simulates the aerodynamic forces of the dynamically morphing airfoil. A morphing function is developed and used to modify the geometry of the NACA-63418 baseline airfoil to adapt to wind speed changes. The developed morphing concept generates new airfoil shapes by transforming the coordinates of NACA-63418 into variant airfoils based on a deformation parameter φ, 0≤φ ≤1. The morphing concept provides up to 5% enhancement in turbine power. In addition, a 3% increase in annual energy production is estimated.