2D and 3D Numerical Investigation of the Laminar and Turbulent Flow Over Different Airfoils Using
OpenFOAM
H. Rahimi, W. Medjroubi, and J. Peinke
Carl von Ossietzky University Oldenburg & ForWind GmbH Workgroup TWiSt - Turbulence, Wind Energy & Stochastics
First Symposium on OpenFOAM in Wind Energy 20. – 21. March 2013 – Oldenburg, Germany
Overview § Motivations
§ Objectives
§ Numerical methods and turbulence models
§ Mesh and simulation settings
§ Results
§ Conclusions
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Motivations § Need for numerical investigations to optimize wind turbine output
through wind turbine blade optimization
§ Airfoil sections optimization
§ Understand the complex flow over different airfoil sections
§ Investigate the suitability of the different turbulence models for
airfoil sections
§ Need for validation for OpenFOAM simulations
Hamid Rahimi SOWE-2013 / page 3
Objectives
§ Simulate the turbulent flow over different wind turbine airfoil
sections
§ Use different turbulence and transition models
§ Compare and validate the simulation results with experimental
and other numerical results
§ Simulating the flow over airfoil sections using OpenFOAM 2.1.0
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Numerical Methods
• Reynolds Averaged Navier-Stokes Simulations (RANS)
• RANS Simulations with transition modeling
• Unsteady RANS Simulations (URANS)
• Delayed Detached Eddy Simulation (DDES) with a Spalart-Allmaras
background model
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Turbulence models
Spalart-Allmaras model
• A one equation turbulence model
• Developed for aerodynamical applications
• Solves a modeled transport equation for a modified eddy viscosity.
• Fast, numerically stable and reasonably accurate for both boundary
layers and shear layers
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Turbulence models
K-ω SST model
• Two-equation eddy viscosity model
• Solves a transport equations for k and ω
• Switches to k-ϵ behavior in the free stream region
• Avoids k- ω sensitivity to the inlet free-stream turbulence condition
• Produces too large turbulence levels in some regions
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Turbulence models
Transition model KKL- ω
• Based on the k- ω SST model
• Three transport equations are for the turbulent kinetic energy (kT ), the
laminar kinetic energy (kL) and the scale-determining variable (ω)
• Addresses laminar, transitional and fully turbulent flows with the
use of Reynolds averaging
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Simulations
• For performing the simulation we used the FLOW * cluster • The FLOW cluster consist of 2232 CPU cores
• For k-ω SST, Spalart-Allmaras and OpenFoam with transition modeling 32 CPU cores were used per simulation
• For DDES turbulence model 128 CPU cores were used per simulation
• The typical simulation time for a RANS simulation is 3 days • The typical simulation time for a DES simulation is 60 days
* The Facility for Large-Scale cOmputations in Wind energy research (FLOW)
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Mesh
§ Schematic representation of the numerical domain
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Airfoils
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FX 79-W-151A NACA 63-430
FX 79-W-151A
• Commonly used in wind turbines
• Maximum thickness of 15.2% at 33.9% chord
• The maximum camber of 3.8% at 37.1% chord
• Re=700,000
• Inflow velocity 10.5m/s
• Turbulence intensity of 1%
Reference for experimental result: J. Schneemann. Auftriebmessungen in turbulenter Umgebung Master thesis, Institut of Physics, University of Oldenburg, 2009.
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FX 79-W-151A simulation conditions
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Element K-ω SST Transition model Spalart-Allmaras
Total number of cell 134,400 1,500,000 191,000
The height of the closest cell to the wall
Reynolds number
Freestream velocity
Solver K-ω SST UnSteady-PisoFoam
KKL- ω Steady-SimpleFoam
Spalart-Allmaras Steady-SimpleFoam
sm5.10
5107∗
sm5.10 s
m5.10
5107∗ 5107∗
m3103.8 −∗ m5107.2 −∗ m5108.8 −∗200≈+y 1≈+y 1≈+y
FX 79-W-151A simulation conditions
Hamid Rahimi SOWE-2013 / page 14
Element K-ω SST Transition model Spalart-Allmaras
Total number of cell 134,400 1,500,000 191,000
The height of the closest cell to the wall
Reynolds number
Freestream velocity
Solver K-ω SST UnSteady-PisoFoam
KKL- ω Steady-SimpleFoam
Spalart-Allmaras Steady-SimpleFoam
sm5.10
5107∗
sm5.10 s
m5.10
5107∗ 5107∗
m3103.8 −∗ m5107.2 −∗ m5108.8 −∗200≈+y 1≈+y 1≈+y
FX 79-W-151A
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Pre-Stall Stall+Post-Stall
FX 79-W-151A
Hamid Rahimi SOWE-2013 / page 16
Pre-Stall Stall+Post-Stall
FX 79-W-151A
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Pre-Stall Stall+Post-Stall
NACA 63-430
• Maximum thickness of 30%
• Re=1.5 million
• Inflow velocity 24 m/s
• Turbulence intensity 1%
Reference for experimental result: F. Bertagnolio, N. Sørensen, J. Johansen, and P. Fuglsang. Profile Catalogue for Airfoil Sections Based on 3D Computations, Risø-R-1581. Technical report, Risø National Laboratory, Roskilde, Denmark, 2006.
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NACA 63-430 Simulation conditions
Hamid Rahimi SOWE-2013 / page 19
Element K-ω SST Transition model Spalart-Allmaras
Total number of cell 128,400 590,000 934,000
The height of the closest cell to the wall
Reynolds number
Freestream velocity
Solver K-ω SST UnSteady-PisoFoam
KKL- ω Steady-SimpleFoam
Spalart-Allmaras Steady-SimpleFoam
sm24
6105.1 ∗
sm24 s
m24
6105.1 ∗ 6105.1 ∗
m3103.8 −∗ m6104.1 −∗ m4109 −∗400≈+y 1≈+y 30≈+y
NACA 63-430 Simulation conditions
Hamid Rahimi SOWE-2013 / page 20
Element K-ω SST Transition model Spalart-Allmaras
Total number of cell 128,400 590,000 934,000
The height of the closest cell to the wall
Reynolds number
Freestream velocity
Solver K-ω SST UnSteady-PisoFoam
KKL- ω Steady-SimpleFoam
Spalart-Allmaras Steady-SimpleFoam
sm24
6105.1 ∗
sm24 s
m24
6105.1 ∗ 6105.1 ∗
m3103.8 −∗ m6104.1 −∗ m4109 −∗400≈+y 1≈+y 30≈+y
NACA 63-430
Hamid Rahimi SOWE-2013 / page 21
Pre-Stall Stall+Post-Stall
NACA 63-430
Hamid Rahimi SOWE-2013 / page 22
Pre-Stall Stall+Post-Stall
NACA 63-430
Hamid Rahimi SOWE-2013 / page 23
Pre-Stall Stall+Post-Stall
NACA 63-430 § Cp for the kkl- ω transition model and Reθ transition model at
AOA=6°
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Conclusions § Good agreement using Spalart-Allmaras model for the pre-stall
and stall region but not for Post-stall region § Using the OpenFoam transition model and k- ω SST , very good
agreement is found compared to the experimental and other numerical results
§ This transition model delivers much better results than other
transition models used in the literature (like the Reθ model)
§ Computational results obtained from DDES for the post-stall region are not correctly predicted
§ the sensitivity of the turbulence models to the normalized wall
distance y + is studied Hamid Rahimi SOWE-2013 / page 25
Mesh
§ Schematic representation of the numerical domain
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FX 79-W-151A
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Transition model KKL- ω § 24 constants - Difficult to implement
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NACA 63-430 § Cp for the kkl- ω transition model and Reθ transition model at
AOA=18°
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