Experimental Analysis of the Performance of a Wind-Turbine Airfoil Using Temperature-Sensitive Paint

Abstract

Knowledge on the boundary-layer transition location at large chord Reynolds numbers is essential to evaluate the performance of airfoils designed for modern wind-turbine rotor blades. In the present work, a temperature-sensitive paint was used to systematically study boundary-layer transition on the suction side of a DU 91-W2-250 airfoil. The experiments were performed in the High-Pressure Wind Tunnel Göttingen at chord Reynolds numbers up to 12 million and angles of attack from −14 to 20°. The coefficients of airfoil lift, drag, and pitching moment were also obtained after integration of the pressure distributions measured on the surface and in the wake of the wind-tunnel model. The global information obtained via temperature-sensitive paint not only enabled the analysis of the change in the transition location with varying angle of attack and chord Reynolds number, but also provided an explanation for the evolution of the aerodynamic coefficients measured at stall and poststall conditions. The stability of the laminar boundary layers investigated in the experiments was analyzed according to linear stability theory. The results of the stability computations supported the experimentally observed variations in the transition location. The amplification factors of boundary-layer disturbances at transition were also determined by correlating the experimental and numerical results.