Centre for Intelligent Transport

Innovate blade aerodynamic technology for wind turbines

Principal investigator:Eldad AVITAL
Funding source(s):British Council
 Start: 01-12-2021  /  End: 31-07-2023
 Amount: £12620
Research Centre:
Fig 1: CFD of a blade profile with no flow control (left), with injection flow control at leading edge (right) causing blur of wake and reduction in trailing-edge noise [1]. Fig 2: Model mounted in TAU wind tunnel seeking to mitigate low frequency noise.

The project seeks collaboration to improve the aerodynamic and aeroacoustic performance of small to mid size wind turbines. Such turbines can harness wind energy available in urban and rural areas. Computational and experimental expertises of QMUL and TAU are joined to seek optimal configurations of passive and active control. The project includes: sharing research methodologies, joint academic research communications and follow-up with joint grant submissions.

Activities so far: The QMUL team has conducted a computational study on blade flow and noise control, while using experimental data obtained through this project for validation, see Fig 1 and [1]. The TAU team has built an experimental model to test and improve aerodynamic and aeroacoustic performance of a wind turbine, see Fig 2. A joint TAU-QMUL journal paper was published on a theoretical study of colloids that can be utilised for assembling micro fluidic controllers [2].

Future activities: Mutual visits will continue until January 2023 to produce another joint journal submission and grant applications in the field of fluid dynamics and aeroacoustic control [3].

 

References:

[1] Y Chen, EJ Avital, S Santra (2022) Computational study of aerofoil’s self noise when subject to leading edge jet blowing flow control, AIAA paper 2022 2920, Southampton June 2022

[2] T Miloh(2) and EJ Avital (2022) Travelling-Wave Electrophoresis, Electro-Hydrodynamics, Electro-Rotation, and Symmetry-Breaking of a Polarizable Dimer in Non-Uniform Fields, Micromachines 13(8) 1173

[3] Wolf A, Lutz Th, Würz, W, Krämer E, Stalnov O, Seifert A (2015) Trailing edge noise reduction of wind turbine blades by active flow control, Wind Energy 18(5), 909-923