Journal of Wind Engineering and Industrial Aerodynamics, 39 ( 1992 ) 41-49 41

Elsevier Science Publishers B.V., Amsterdam - - Printed in The Netherlands

Steady and unsteady separated flows around a

profile. Application on the wind turbines

Dimitri Foussekis, Philippe Frauni~ and Claude Bdguier

lnstitut de Mdcanique Statistique de la Turbulence, 12, avenue Gdndral Leclerc,
13003 MarseiUe, France

Summary

The phenomenon of dynamic stall occurring during the rotation of the ~ind turbine blades is
described by studying the separation of the airfoil's boundary layer. A coupled viscid/inviscid
numerical code is presented treating unsteady flows close to separation. Experiments show the
complexity of the phenomenon, particularly in the studied Reynold's number where a double
separation occurs.

1. Introduction

The phenomenon of dynamic stall has a great importance on the aerodyn-

amic behaviour of wind turbines rotor. It occurs as soon as separation of
boundary layer takes place and influences dramatically the aerodynamic loads
on the profile [ 1]. The aim of this numerical and experimental work is to study
the evolution of the separation around a profile or a flat plate, in steady and
unsteady cases.
The numerical part consists in developing a computer code for the calcula-
tion of steady and unsteady viscid/inviscid interaction, using the panel method
for the potential flow and the finite differences resolution of Prandtrs equation
for the boundary layer, adopting the Cebeci-Smith turbulence model. Differ-
ent kinds of profiles can be easily included in this compact computer code
which can run on a 386 PC and many experimental comparisons were made
for a NACA 0012 profile and a flat plate [2].
The experimental part, realized into a hydrodynamic tunnel with laser ane-
mometry measurements and visualizations, focused on the study of fully sep
arated flows. Several types of periodic motions were realized to produce an
equivalent stall phenomenon to that of a wind turbine blade.

0167-6105/92/$05.00 © 1992 Elsevier Science Publishers B.V. All rights reserved.

42

2. Numerical study

The numerical process for the determination of the instantaneous flow

around the profile in cyclic motion, considers that the flow can be composed
of an inviscid part, far away of the profile and in the wake, and of a viscid
part for the boundary layers.
The inviscid flow is calculated by utilizing a panel representation of the
airfoil and of the wake. The boundary condition of Kutta-Joukowski at the
trailing edge is satisfied by emitting a series of discrete vortices. By use of
¢',.,..

al
q

\
,t~ ~ ~ o,

ri

' c r ~ ~'
cA ~A 0

t ~ 0

~, f "

Fig. 1. NACA 0018 profile in a pitching motion 0 = 10 ° + 15 ° sin(2.07t); k--- 1.57; Re-- 2400; cal-
culation and experiment.
 43

d . j d. ' " . . J :~ . . . . . .
• " ...... a - . "'-. I~ : • "'..ia.
j : ."'b'...d..~ : "'"",4. : : : """*'
t. . , ......... -:...,,, / " .' "-.~ ~:'".~....g. - : :

...:. :'? .......~.,"..... ~... : , - : : .,}" ~( :.-' :/ /

:1 -.," ": ::" :., ; : : :" ~:".~" l , :

:iiii/'

- - C . L . I ominaire

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . C.L. turbulente

1 ...... L.~. •

........ :.._ :~ ! i !'7!~:'---~....~..~..,_.,_

Fig. 2. Comparison of the instantaneous velocity field around a fiat plate and a NACA 0012 profile
at cot= 120°; k=0.11; gffi0.13; Re=3 10e; k=coc/2Uoo; ~=Aco/U®; where A stands for the am-
plitude of the motion and c for the chord of the profile.

Green's equation together with the surface tangency condition for a coordi-
nate system with respect to the airfoil, we can write at a point P:

ry (grip Ons
02 (}) ds+
f Y Onp Ons
02 (})ds=2xUp
body wake

where as is the normal vector to the distributed singularities <rand y on the

profile and the wake respectively and Up is the induced normal velocity on the
blade.
The pressure field as well as the lift, drag and moment coefficients may be
44

0 9 . . . . I . . . . I . . . . I . . . .

Flat plate PF+BL

. NACAO012 PF+BL
0 8
,._t

,g 0 7
ae j ~t tl÷
0
0
~÷ °e e ° oe t÷ _
0 6
t1 Oloololo • tt
_.J

0 5

, i . . I . . . . I . . . . J . . . .
0 4
0 90 180 270 360

wt

Fig. 3. Lift coefficients for a N A C ~ 0012 and a flat plate undergoing a fore-and-aft oscillation at
an angle of attack of 6 °. x = 0.3 sin (0.15t); k = 0.075; 2 = 0.045.

Fig. 4. Variation of pressure coefficient Cp on the upper side o f a NACA 0012 in rotational motion.

calculated as soon as the potential field has been determined. The wake ge-
ometry is found by introducing an apparent viscosity v. in the calculation of
the induced velocity at each discrete vortex 7 at a distance r:
Uo=(7/2~r) [1-exp(-r2/4v~t) ].
Figure 1 shows a comparison between experiment and calculated wake ge-
ometry in the case of a pitching oscillation ( 0 = 10 ° + 15 ° sin(2.0qt) ) when
v~=0.0009.
The boundary layer calculation is performed using the Falkner-Skan trans-
formation in order to solve Prandtl's equation. The Cebeci-Smith model of
turbulence is introduced in the case of a turbulent boundary layer [ 3]. The
numerical solution is performed utilizing either the discretization scheme of
 45

Keller or that caUcd "zig-zag", depending on whether we have or not an in-

verse flow. The occurrence of transition is predicted by an unsteady empirical
formula deduced from the stationary Michel's criterion [ 9 ] and from Crimi
and Reeves' formula [ 10] when a leading edge bubble occurs.
In order to test the code, several fundamental periodic motions were stud-
ied, simulating the motion of the wind turbines blades. To facilitate experi-
mental comparisons the well documented NACA 0012 [ 4 ] and a small flat
plate were used. Figure 2 illustrates the instantaneous boundary layers (mag-
nified 50 times) for the NACA 0012 airfoil together with the flat plate at 6 °
angle of attack undergoing a plunging oscillation (y = 0.56 sin (0.22 t ). In this
case a small bubble occurs on the upper side of the flat plate, close to the
leading edge.
In the case of a fore-and-aft oscillation (x=0.3 sin(0.150 ) at an angle of
attack of 6 °, the lift coefficients are plotted in Fig. 3. The computed lift coef-
ficients CL appear to be higher for the flat plate after the inviscid flow calcu-
lations alone, but coupled viscid/inviscid calculations inverse this fact prov-
ing the importance of the boundary layer effects in the case of the flat plate
(see also Fig. 2 ).
Figure 4 shows the computed variation of the pressure coefficient (inviscid
flow) in the case of a NACA 0012 undergoing the Darrieus blade motion.
Here, it has to be noted that the region of the leading edge is strongly affected
by this kind of motion. Full separation occurs during almost a quarter of a
period; this case is treated in the experimental part of this study.
3. Experimental study

A n experimental set up was realized in order to study the characteristics of

steady and unsteady fully separated flows. A vertical water channel was used
having a section of 20 × 20 cm 2,a length of 1.50 m and working by gravity.The
flow is continuous between an upper tank of 2.5 m 8 of capacity, and two lower
tanks of the same capacity collecting the water before its return to the upper
tank. The level is maintained constant by electrovalves,pumps, by-pass and
overflow walls. Typically the Reynolds number is about 104 but it can vary in
the range of 103 to 2 × 104. The studied airfoilwas a N A C A 0018 profile,gen-
erally used for the Darrieus wind mill rotor [8]. The airfoilis 20 cm large and
6 cm long in its chord. Its body contains two dye circuits,opening, the one at
the leading edge, the other at the trailingedge, at the mean plane of the airfoil,
from small holes of a diameter of 0.5 mm. Moreover, some microtubes were
placed upstream to obtain some streamlines of the potential flow. A film has
been also recorded and restituted,image by image (50 img/s), in order to de-
tect precisely the differentphases of the dynamic stallphenomenon occurring
during a fraction of period (formore detailssee Tchon et al. [5 ],Bdguier et al.
[61).
Velocity measurements were made in order to analyze the detached flow,
46

Fig, 5. Steady a n d unsteady separation on a fiat plate at an incidence of 6 ° (plunging oscillation:

k = 1.3; ~ = 0.2; Re = 8000).
 47

a I 3 J 2 I q I 0

7 I b I 5

15

Fig. 6. Unsteady separation ofa NACA 0018 p~ofile in a pitching motion (image delay= 1/50 s).

thanks to a laser Doppler anemometry system. A particular technique was used

to overcome the practical problem of measuring the fluid velocity close to the
airfoil: a laser mirror was placed at the channel wall in such a way that the
48

photomultiplier focused on the reflection of the measurement point. Spectrum

analysis was also performed at the inflexion points of the velocity profiles in
order to detect the frequency of the instability appearing at the free boundary
of the detached zone.
Figure 5 shows two pictures presenting the stall phenomenon in both a steady
and an unsteady case. In the steady case the dye emi~ted from the leading edge
shows an instability developing along the separation free boundary. This in-
stability generates a sheet of corotating vortices ~nd its Strouhal number in-
creases quasi-linearly with the Reynolds number.
Two distinct frequencies were found by spectrum analysis permitting to make
the hypothesis that the whole system should be treated as a dynamic system.
In the unsteady case dynamic stall occurs in a plunging motion at a constant
angle of attack of 6 °; full separation takes place during the quarter period of
decreasing angles. The double separation noted seems to be strongly related to
the instability of the steady separated flow.
Another similar case is shown in Fig. 6 where the "time history" of the dy-
namic stall phenomenon is presented for a NACA 0018 profile in a pitching
motion (0=25 ° sin(1.1t); k=0.55). At the beginning when t*-tUoo/c=O.O a
turbulent separated zone is formed moving downstream in an "avalanche" mo-
tion. This leading edge turbulent separation is followed by a second laminar
separation appearing at the half-chord when t* -0.45 producing a second vor-
tex of a higher intensity. These two separations characterizing the dynamic
stall have been studied firstly by Tchon et al. [5]. The second laminar sepa-
ration seems to be responsible for the brutal fall of lift appearing during the
dynamic stall [7,11 ]; it corresponds to the passage of the laminar vortex at the
trailing edge.

4. Conclusions

In this paper steady and unsteady separated flows were analyzed in order to
describe in detail the stall phenomenon.
A coupled viscid/inviscid code is presented being able to predict the bound-
ary layer's unsteady behaviour (for moderate frequencies), as well as small
bubbles appearing close to the leading edge. The code appears to be very sen-
sitive to the discretization in space (number of panels) and in time (number
of wake segments). However, different criteria such as the transition to tur-
bulence, have to be improved in order to predict correctly the separation.
The experimental part, realized into a hydrodynamic tunnel by means of
LDA measurements and visualizations, is focused on the study of fully sepa-
rated steady and unsteady flows. In the case of steady inverse flows an insta-
bility was revealed at the free boundary of the airfoil related to the existence
of two frequencies. Consequently, this unstable behaviour of a steady sepa-
 49

rated flow, could be responsible for the double separation occurring in the case
of a moving profile, at the studied Reynolds number.

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