Unsteady aerodynamic simulations of a multi-megawatt airborne wind energy reference system using computational fluid dynamics

Abstract

Airborne wind energy (AWE) is an emerging technology for the conversion of wind energy into electricity by flying crosswind patterns with a tethered aircraft. Having a proper understanding of the unsteady interaction of the air with the highly dynamic system during operation is key to developing viable AWE systems. High fidelity simulation tools are needed to correctly predict these interactions, which will provide insights into the design and operation of advanced and efficient AWE systems. The research goal of this contribution is to predict the time-varying aerodynamic forces acting on a reference system, which will be achieved using high-fidelity modelling. This work contains a feasibility study that uses the Chimera overset technique to simulate aerodynamic behaviour over the complete flight trajectory. The motion of the AWE system is included by overlaying the moving body-fitted mesh attached to the AWE aircraft over the background mesh. The Chimera overset technique connects both meshes, interpolating the solution at the overset boundary. This technique has been proven to be a robust approach to simulate the motion of an AWE system in computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulations.

Wing Deformation of an Airborne Wind Energy System in Crosswind Flight Using High-Fidelity Fluid–Structure Interaction

“…In this configuration, the wing component mesh was used without background mesh, and the flight velocity was imposed at the inlet, which is the front of the wing component mesh. A more detailed analysis of configuration 0 and a comparison with other published results can be found in [21]. A lower lift coefficient was predicted by the presented CFD model compared with other published results [16] due to the inability of lower-fidelity models to predict flow separation.…”

“…The presence of the tether and its effect on tilt and flight path are neglected, such that the aircraft operates under perfect crosswind conditions, similar to the blade of a wind turbine. The implementation of rigid-body motion is explained in [21]. In our simulations, the aircraft flew at a constant flight speed of 80 m/s, which made the period of revolution T l = 20.85 s. The values of flight path radius, height and speed were based on the optimized flight path presented in [7].…”

Study of the Moment of Drag and Lift on Different Air-foil Shapes and Thickness During Wind Tunnel Application: A Review

“…Pynaert et al [50] An innovative method dubbed airborne wind energy (AWE) turns by using a tethered aeroplane to fly crosswind patterns, and you can convert wind energy into powerright comprehension of the flighty air-very unique framework communication. Activity is essential for the advancement of helpful Stunningness frameworks.…”