DES Study of Airfoil Lift Coefficient Sensitivity to Flow Turbulence

The aerodynamic behavior of wind turbines is strongly influenced by the turbulence level. However, the design of the rotor blades is usually based on experimental results of airfoils operating under laminar conditions. This leads to great uncertainties in the design process, which in turn make wind turbines less reliable and cost-effective. In this work a DES numerical study of the flow around a Wortmann FX 79-W-151A airfoil is performed for different turbulence intensities. Special attention is paid to the resulting loads. The simulations are then compared and validated with already available load measurements. The aim of this work is on one hand to gain a better understanding of the aerodynamics of an airfoil working in a turbulent flow. On the other hand, it is also of great interest to see up to which degree the numerical simulations are able to predict the force coefficients.