Exploration of the vortex wake behind of wind turbine rotor

The present paper describes a wind tunnel study of flow downstream a small horizontal axis wind turbine (HAWT). The experimental investigations were carried out with the use of particle image velocimetry (PIV). To obtain the flow field in the rotating frame of reference, the phase-locked technique was applied. Explorations were carried out in azimuth planes with different angles. The 3D velocity field was reconstituted by processing the images resulting from the explored azimuth planes. In addition to PIV investigations, hot-wire measurements were also carried out immediately behind the wind turbine rotor at different radial and axial distances. The obtained results are very useful to analyze wind turbine wake and to constitute a reference for CFD computation.