Towards Multidisciplinary Wind Turbine Design using High-Fidelity Methods

Abstract

Reliable predictions for wind turbines become more and more difficult with the increase in overall size and weight. On the one hand external factors such as the influence of wind shear become more important for bigger turbines, internal factors such as structural layout and challenges in the manufacturing process need to be addressed on the other hand. Accurate aerodynamic simulations are an essential requirement for further analyses of aeroelastic stability and aeroacoustic footprint. While the calculations in all of these individual disciplines are challenging the combined simulation of all these disciplines, namely the multidisciplinary simulation is a tough but gainful undertaking. This task is being addressed in the DLR project MERWind which will be presented here. The focus of the paper lays on the aerodynamic and aeroelastic simulation of the NREL 5MW wind turbine using high-fidelity methods.