Theoretical and Experimental Analysis of Aerodynamic Noise in Small Wind Turbines

Abstract

This paper presents an analysis of sound pressure levels through theoretical modeling and experimental validation in a 1 kW small wind turbine. The models used in the theoretical analysis are BPM (Brooks, Pope, and Marcolini) and BM (Brooks and Marcolini), where wind turbine blades are divided in sections, and each section has its own contribution with respect to the total emitted sound pressure level. The noise propagation study and its experimental validation were accomplished within the requirements of the standard IEC 61400-11 Ed.3 and the standard NOM-081-SEMARNAT-1994. The comparative study of theoretical and experimental results showed that the BPM and BM methods have a maximum error of 5.5% corresponding to the rated wind speed of 10 m/s. However, at low wind speeds, the theoretical models fit well to experimental data, for example, in the range from 5 to 8 m/s. The experimental data showed that the rotor’s aerodynamic noise is more evident at low wind speed, because under these conditions, environmental noise is much less than wind turbine noise. Finally, to prevent possible negative effects on people’s health, there is a recommended minimum and suitable distance between small wind turbine installations and buildings.

Recent Development in the Design of Wind Deflectors for Vertical Axis Wind Turbine: A Review

“…These drastic changes are experienced due to large buildings and other urban structures, rendering large HAWTs unsuitable for power generation under such conditions [26]. HAWTs are also known for noise generation which creates a disturbance in their surroundings [27,28]. Obstacles to the installation of HAWTs also include visual as well as environmental impacts on their surroundings (such as to animal behavior, including birds).…”

Measuring Wind Turbine Health Using Drifting Concepts

“…The length of the interval equal to 0.5 is frequently seen in the literature, cf. [30]. Temperature will be split into intervals determined using a clustering procedure (as it is performed in other studies, including [21]).…”

Aero-acoustics Investigation of a Bionic Airfoil Horizontal Axis Wind Turbine Using LES-DCS Approach

“…However, the FW-H algorithm mainly uses array feature points to study the wake noise radiation of wind turbine, which lacks a more comprehensive and detailed analysis ability of acoustic radiation field. In view of this, the paper will use the direct computation of sound (DCS) [22,23] method to study the acoustic radiation field of the horizontal axis wind turbine wake flow with the bionic airfoil, so as to find an efficient way to achieve a more in-depth investigation of the relevant characteristics. Additionally, the high-fidelity CFD algorithm uses the Lattice Boltzmann method (LBM), which unlike the finite volume method, the LBM algorithm [24,25] has a strong adaptability to mesoscopic hydrodynamic behavior description.…”