a r t i c l e
i n f o
Article history:
Received 4 January 2015
Accepted 6 April 2015
Available online 28 April 2015
Keywords:
Horizontal Axis Wind Turbine
Wind turbine noise
Aerodynamic noise
Turbulence
a b s t r a c t
This paper presents the results of the aerodynamic and aero-acoustic prediction of the ow eld around
the National Renewable Energy Laboratory Phase VI wind turbine. The Improved Delayed Detached Eddy
Simulation turbulence model is applied to obtain the instantaneous turbulent ow eld. The noise
prediction is carried out using the Ffowcs Williams and Hawkings acoustic analogy. Simulations are
performed for three different inow conditions, U = 7, 10, 15 m/s. The capability of the Improved
Delayed Detached Eddy Simulation turbulence model in massive separation is veried with available
experimental data for pressure coefcient. The broadband noises of the turbulent boundary layers and
the tonal noises due to the blade passing frequency are predicted via ow eld noise simulation. The
contribution of the thickness, loading and quadrupole noises are investigated, separately. The results
indicated that there is a direct relation between the strength of the radiated noise and the wind speed.
Furthermore, the effect of the receiver location on the Overall Sound Pressure Level is investigated.
2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
1. Introduction
An increasing need for energy coupled with global warming has
caused to exploring new alternatives to meet energy requirements
[1]. One of the most promising renewable sources is wind energy
[2]. In particular, there is an interest to develop small wind turbines for urban and suburban applications [3]. However, wind
energy also has several disadvantages that stand in the way of
wind turbine technology becoming popular. One of its major problems is societal rejection of wind turbines in developed areas due
to acoustic pollution. Aeroacoustic noise from wind turbine may
be a cause of annoyance from people living in the neighborhood
of the turbines, particularly those neighborhoods with the low
ambient noise level [4]. Noise emitted from an operating wind turbine can be divided into mechanical noise and aerodynamic noise.
Mechanical noise originates from different machinery components,
such as the generator and the gearbox. Aerodynamic noise is radiated from the blades and is mainly associated with the interaction
of turbulence with the blade surface [5]. Machinery noise can be
reduced efciently by well-known engineering methods Such as
vibration suppression, vibration isolation and fault detection techniques [4], whereas reduction of aerodynamic noise still represents
a problem, and aerodynamic noise is the dominating noise
Corresponding author.
E-mail address: nejat@ut.ac.ir (A. Nejat).
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.enconman.2015.04.011
0196-8904/ 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
211
Nomenclature
a0
Cp
d
f
H
k
lIDDES
lRANS
M
p
Pij
r
Sij
t
T ij
Uj
Un
vn
Greeksymbols
d f
Dirac delta function
l
molecular viscosity (kg/ms)
lt
turbulent viscosity (kg/ms)
q
density (kg/m3)
sij
s
x
tensor of stress
retarded time (s)
rotational speed (rpm)
Subscripts
L
loading noise
n
component in surface normal direction
T
thickness noise
0
undisturbed condition
Abbreviations
CFD
Computational Fluid Dynamic
FW-H
Ffowcs Williams and Hawkings
FFT
Fast Fourier Transform
IDDES
Improved Delayed Detached Eddy Simulation
HAWT Horizontal Axis Wind Turbine
LES
Large Eddy Simulation
NREL
National Renewable Energy Laboratory
OASPL
Overall Sound Pressure Level
PISO
Pressure Implicit with Splitting of Operator
RANS
Reynolds-Average Navier Stokes
SPL
Sound Pressure Level
URANS Unsteady RANS
TKE
Turbulent Kinetic Energy
URANS Unsteady RANS
Several previous studies of the HAWTs noise used URANS
approaches which these models tend to be overly dissipative and
have been found to be poorly suited for prediction separated ow
typically encountered at high wind speed. Furthermore, due to
their inherent time-averaged nature, direct acoustic predictions
derived from RANS are questionable. This study addresses some
aspects of wind turbine noise generation and propagation not covered or not fully understood in the literature such as the role of
thickness, loading and quadrupole noises at different frequencies
and the effects of wind speed on ow separation and noise
generation.
This paper has used Improved Delayed Detached Eddy
Simulation (IDDES) to predict aerodynamic noise radiated from
the NREL Phase VI wind Turbine. The current study is an accurate
three-dimensional CFD unsteady simulation for aerodynamic noise
prediction of the ow around the NREL Phase VI wind turbine. The
IDDES turbulence model is conducted to obtain the instantaneous
turbulent ow eld. The noise predictions are performed by the
FW-H acoustic analogy formulation. This paper focuses on the
broadband noises of the turbulent boundary layers and tonal
noises related to the passage of the blade. The surface
pressure coefcients for three different inow conditions
U 1 7; 10; 15 m=s were compared with the experimental data
by [14]. The effect of distance and wind speed on the Sound
Pressure Level spectrum and the Overall Sound Pressure Level
(OASPL) is studied. Furthermore, the contribution of the thickness,
loading and quadrupole noises were investigated, separately.
The purpose of this study is to evaluate the capability of the
IDDES turbulence model in the aerodynamic prediction of wind
Table 1
The contribution of different sources in the total noise.
U 1 (m/s)
Quadrupole noise
(dB)
Total noise
(dB)
7
10
15
46.7
53.5
60.7
49.3
58.6
64.6
51.2
59.8
66.1
212
@ qk @ quj k
@
1
@k
qk3=2
sij Sij
l lt
@xj
@t
@xj
@xj
rk
LIDDES
LIDDES
~f d 1 f e LRANS 1 ~f d LLES
where the length scales of RANS and LES are dened as:
where Pij is the compressive stress tensor that includes the surface
pressure and viscous stress.
The second term is related to the dipole or loading noise and the
last term correspond to the monopole or thickness noise. Thickness
and loading terms are surface distribution sources as indicated by
the presence of the delta function df while the quadrupole term
is a volume distribution of sources indicated by Heaviside function
Hf . The wave Eq. (3) can be integrated analytically under the
assumptions of the free-space ow and the absence of obstacles
between the sound sources and the receivers. The complete solution
consists of surface integrals and volume integrals. The surface integrals represent the contributions from monopole and dipole acoustic
sources and partially from quadrupole sources, whereas the volume
integrals represent quadrupole (volume) sources in the region outside the source surface. The contribution of the volume integrals
becomes small when the ow is low subsonic, and the source surface
encloses the source region and can be neglected. Thus, acoustic pressure p0 which is mentioned in Eq. (3) is composed as:
p0 ~
x; t p0T ~
x; t p0L ~
x; t
k
b x
LLES C DES D
4pp0T ~
x; t
For
the
IDDES,
the
grid
scale
is
redened
as
D minfmaxfC w Dmax ; C w d; Dmin g; Dmax g, where C w is a fundamental
empirical constant, d the distance to the nearest wall, Dmin is
min Dx ; Dy ; Dz and Dmax is max Dx ; Dy ; Dz . Function ~f d is dened
as maxf1 f dt ; f B g, which is determined by both the geometry
part f B and the ow part 1 f dt . The detailed information can be
found in [17].
1 @ 2 p0
@2
r2 p0
T ij Hf
2
2
@xi @xj
a0 @t
@
Pij nj qui un v n df
@xi
@
fq0 v n qun v n df g
@t
"
q0 U_ n U n_
dS
r1 M r 2 ret
"
#
q0 U n rM_ r a0 Mr M2
f 0
r 2 1 Mr 3
f 0
dS
ret
and
4p
p0L ~
x; t
where ~
x is the observer position, t is the observer time, the subscripts T and L correspond to thickness (monopole) and loading
(dipole) components, respectively, and as follows [21]:
1=2
LRANS
a0
"
L_ r
"
Lr LM
dS
3
r1 M r 2 ret
f 0 r 2 1 M r
3
2
Z
_ r a0 M r M 2
rM
1
4Lr
5 dS
a0 f 0
r2 1 M r 3
f 0
#
dS
ret
ret
where
Ui v i
q
u v i
q0 i
^ j qui un v n
Li Pij n
The various subscripted quantities appearing in (6) and (7) are the
inner products of a vector and a unit vector implied by the sub!
where un is the uid velocity in the direction normal to the integration surface, v n is the normal velocity of the integration surface, df
is Dirac delta function and Hf is Heaviside function. Subscript, 0,
denes the value in undisturbed medium and the primed value represents the difference between the value in real state and in the
undisturbed medium (e.g. p0 p p0 .
The shape and the motion of the control surface are dened by
x; t 0, with f < 0 for its interior and f > 0 for its exterior.
f ~
The terms in the right-hand side of Eq. (3) refer to different
mechanisms of sound production. The rst source term involves
Lighthill stress tensor and shows that the time-dependent stresses
generate sound. Such sources are called quadrupoles. Lighthill
stress tensor is dened as:
r and U n U ~
n where ~
r and ~
n denote
script. For instance, Lr L ~
the unit vectors in the radiation and wall-normal directions, respectively. The dot over a variable denotes the source-time differentiation of that variable. The Mach number vector M i is the local surface
velocity vector divided by the freestream sound speed. The subscript ret denotes that the integrand is evaluated at the retarded
time, s dened as:
st
r
a0
where t; r and a0 are receiver time, the distance to the receiver and
the speed of sound, respectively.
3. Problem description
The NREL Phase VI wind turbine is a two-bladed rotor. The
geometry of the blade is based on the S809 airfoil. The radius of
the blades is 5.029 m and the rated power of the wind turbine is
213
Fig. 1. Schematic of computational grid near the blade (a) computational domain, (b) grid near blade, and (c) boundary layer grid.
450
400
350
Torque [N.m]
19.8 kW. The details about the blade geometry can be found in the
NREL/NASA Ames Phase VI unsteady experiment [14].
A 3-D incompressible unsteady computational uid dynamics
solver, Ansys Fluent 15, based on the nite volume method is
employed to solve the NavierStokes equations using IDDES technique. The uid is assumed to be incompressible as the free-stream
Mach number is low M 0:0206. Due to the incompressibility of
the ow, the pressure-based solver is chosen, which is traditionally
implemented to solve low-speed incompressible ows. The PISO
(Pressure Implicit with Splitting of Operator) algorithm is chosen
for coupling the velocitypressure equations. Spatial discretization
has been preceded using a least squares cell based algorithm for
gradients, the bounded central differencing scheme for momentum, second order upwind scheme for both turbulent kinetic
energy and specic dissipation rate. A bounded second order implicit scheme was used for transient algorithm.
The computational domain consists of two regions; a rotating
region and a stationary region. To simulate rotating blade with
respect to the stationary outer domain the sliding mesh method
is used with a half-cylindrical interface between both domains.
300
250
200
150
100
2E+06
4E+06
6E+06
8E+06
214
of the rst row of cells that bounding the blade is set to be 105 m
which ensures y < 1 for cells immediately adjacent to the blade.
To decrease both cell number of the grid and computation time,
U=7m/s @ r/R=0.30
IDDES
k-w SST [22]
Experiment [14]
-Cp
-Cp
-1
-1
0.2
0.4
x/c
0.6
0.8
-2
U=7m/s @ r/R=0.633
0.2
0.4
x/c
0.6
IDDES
k-w SST [22]
Experiment [14]
0.8
U=7m/s @ r/R=0.80
IDDES
k-w SST [22]
Experiment [14]
-Cp
-1
-1
0.2
0.4
0.6
0.8
-2
0.2
0.4
0.6
x/c
x/c
U=7m/s @ r/R=0.95
IDDES
k-w SST [22]
Experiment [14]
-Cp
-Cp
-2
IDDES
k-w SST [22]
Experiment [14]
-2
U=7m/s @ r/R=0.467
-1
-2
0.2
0.4
0.6
0.8
x/c
Fig. 3. Pressure coefcient distribution of NREL Phase VI blade at wind speed of 7 m/s.
0.8
215
sizes were tested. Fig. 2 shows the torque of the blade for ve different numbers of elements corresponded to U 7 m=s. As Fig. 2
shows, as the number of the grid exceeds about 5 million elements,
there is a negligible variation in the blade torque. So the nal mesh
consists of 5,211,537 cells in two volumes.
U=10m/s @ r/R=0.30
IDDES
k-w SST [22]
Experiment [14]
-1
-1
0.2
0.4
x/c
0.6
0.8
-2
U=10m/s @ r/R=0.633
0.2
0.4
x/c
0.6
IDDES
k-w SST [22]
Experiment [14]
0.8
U=10m/s @ r/R=0.80
IDDES
k-w SST [22]
Experiment [14]
-Cp
-1
-1
-2
0.2
0.4
x/c
0.6
0.8
-2
0.2
0.4
x/c
0.6
U=10m/s @ r/R=0.95
IDDES
k-w SST [22]
Experiment [14]
-Cp
-Cp
-2
IDDES
k-w SST [22]
Experiment [14]
-Cp
-Cp
U=10m/s @ r/R=0.467
-1
-2
0.2
0.4
x/c
0.6
0.8
Fig. 4. Pressure coefcient distribution of NREL Phase VI blade at wind speed of 10 m/s.
0.8
216
5. Results
Cp
U=15m/s @ r/R=0.30
U=15m/s @ r/R=0.467
IDDES
k-w SST [22]
Experiment [14]
p p1
q u21 rx2
where p p1 is the gage pressure, r is the radius of the blade section, and x is the rotational speed. Figs. 35 depict the surface pressure coefcient distribution on the ve spanwise sections at 30%,
46.7%, 63.3%, 80%, 95% of the blade span for three different inow
In order to validate the simulation, the surface pressure coefcient on the blade was compared with the available experimental
data [14]. The surface pressure coefcient is dened as:
1
2
IDDES
k-w SST [22]
Experiment [14]
-Cp
-Cp
2
1
-1
-1
-2
0.2
0.4
0.6
0.8
-2
0.2
0.4
0.6
x/c
U=15m/s @ r/R=0.633
U=15m/s @ r/R=0.80
IDDES
k-w SST [22]
Experiment [14]
IDDES
k-w SST [22]
Experiment [14]
-Cp
-1
-1
0.2
0.4
0.6
0.8
-2
0.2
0.4
0.6
x/c
x/c
U=15m/s @ r/R=0.95
IDDES
k-w SST [22]
Experiment [14]
5
4
3
-Cp
-Cp
-2
0.8
x/c
2
1
0
-1
-2
0.2
0.4
0.6
0.8
x/c
Fig. 5. Pressure coefcient distribution of NREL Phase VI blade at wind speed of 15 m/s.
0.8
217
show the superiority of the IDDES turbulence model in the separation prediction as compared to the conventional RANS models.
Fig. 6 shows the instantaneous pressure contours on the blade
pressure side for three inow conditions. For all conditions, the
contours show considerable variations in the both spanwise and
chordwise directions.
Turbulent vortical structures of the ow eld for two ow conditions U 1 7; 15 m=s are visualized in Fig. 7. To identify these
vortex structures, the Q-criterion isosurface colored with the values of the velocity magnitude is shown.
The Q-criterion which is the second invariant of the velocity
gradient tensor is dened as [23]:
1
Xij Xij Sij Sij
2
Fig. 6. Instantaneous pressure contour on the NREL Phase VI blade pressure side.
Fig. 7. Isosurface of turbulent vertical structures for Q = 200 s2 contoured by the velocity magnitude for U 1 7 m=s (left) and U 1 15 m=s (right).
218
80
IDDES
Tadamasa & Zangeneh [7]
70
U=7 [m/s]
U=10 [m/s]
U=15 [m/s]
f = 2.4 [Hz]
60
60
50
40
30
20
40
20
10
-20
200
400
600
800
1000
10
Frequency [Hz]
10
10
Frequency [Hz]
Fig. 8. Comparison of Sound Pressure Level the NREL Phase VI wind turbine at
U 1 15 m=s with Tadamasa and Zangeneh [7].
Fig. 10. Wind speed effects on the noise generation of NREL Phase VI wind turbine.
80
2.4 [Hz]
60
D=14.74 [m]
D=20.87 [m]
D=36.18 [m]
D=69.29 [m]
D=137.02 [m]
80
40
20
60
40
20
-20
-20
10
10
10
10
Frequency [Hz]
Sij
1 @ui @uj
1 @ui @uj
Xij
2 @xj @xi
2 @xj @xi
LP 10 Log 10
^2
p
^2ref
p
10
10
Frequency [Hz]
Fig. 9. Sound Pressure Level of different mechanism of noise generation from the
NREL Phase VI wind turbine at U 1 15 m=s.
where
Ltwo
blade
10log 10
^2one blade
p
^2ref
p
10log 10 2
^2one blade
p
^2ref
p
!!
^2one blade
p
^2ref
p
10 log 10 2 log 10
^2one blade
p
^2ref
p
!!
!!
3:01 Lone
blade
219
1 min
revolution
1:2
60 s
second
x 72 rpm ! x 72 rpm
Number of blades 2
revolution
second
It is generally known that the Sound Pressure Level at the receiver position is highly depending on the distance between the receiver and the noise source. The further away from the wind turbine,
the lower SPL at the receiver position is observed. The receiver
position effect is shown in Figs. 1113 where the Sound Pressure
Level is computed at different distances from the wind turbine. It
can be seen that the Sound Pressure Level spectrums show significant peaks in the sound intensity at the rotating frequency at each
distance between the receiver and the wind turbine.
Figs. 1113 are related to the noise spectrum for the combination of thickness and loading noise at U 1 7; 10; 15 m=s, respectively. It can be concluded that the noise amplitude is reduced
with increasing the distance between the receiver and the wind
turbine. However, there is no change in the behavior of the spectrum and the location of the tonal peaks.
The effect of distance on the Overall Sound Pressure Level
(OASPL) for three mentioned ow conditions is shown in Fig. 14.
2 1:2 2:4
100
D=14.74 [m]
D=20.87 [m]
D=36.18 [m]
D=69.29 [m]
D=137.02 [m]
80
60
40
20
-20
10
10
10
Frequency [Hz]
Fig. 13. The effect of distance on Sound Pressure Level at U 1 15 m=s.
70
60
U=7 [m/s]
U=10 [m/s]
U=15 [m/s]
65
D=14.74 [m]
D=20.87 [m]
D=36.18 [m]
D=69.29 [m]
D=137.02 [m]
60
55
OASPL [dB]
80
40
50
45
40
20
35
0
30
25
-20
10
10
10
50
100
150
200
Distance [m]
Frequency (Hz)
Fig. 12. The effect of distance on Sound Pressure Level at U 1 10 m=s.
Fig. 14. The overall Sound Pressure Level due to combination of thickness and
loading noise at different distance from the wind turbine for U 1 7; 10; 15 m=s.
220
6. Conclusion
In the present paper, the aerodynamic and aero-acoustic of the
ow eld around the NREL Phase VI wind turbine was studied. The
IDDES turbulence model was conducted to obtain the instantaneous turbulent ow eld. The Ffowcs William and Hawkings
(FW-H) acoustic analogy was applied to predict the Fareld noise.
Simulations were performed for three different inow conditions,
U 7; 10; 15 m=s. The surface pressure coefcient at ve blade sections were veried by experimental data. The good agreement in
the surface pressure shows the advantages of the IDDES turbulence
model for the separation prediction as compared to the conventional RANS models. To illustrate the tip vortex in low velocity condition and massive separation in high velocity circumstance,
turbulent vortical structures around blades were visualized. The
acoustic pressure spectra of the thickness, loading and quadrupole
noise sources were presented and the contributions of each source
were investigated. The results indicate that the quadrupole noise
has negligible inuence on the tonal noise, but the combination
of thickness and loading noise are the dominant noise sources at
those frequencies. The effect of the wind speed and the distance
between the wind turbine and the receivers were studied. The
results showed a direct relation between the strength of the radiated noise and the wind speed. The Sound Pressure Level spectrum
indicated relatively signicant peaks in the sound intensity at frequency of 2.4 Hz for rotational speed of 72 rpm. This tonal peak in
the sound spectra matches with the corresponding blade passing
frequency for this rotational speed. The Overall Sound Pressure
Level (OASPL) at different distances ranging from 20 m to 140 m
were calculated and the results showed it decreases logarithmically with the receiver distance. The OASPL is 6 dB greater at
U 1 15 m=s in comparison with U 1 10 m=s and 8 dB greater
at U 1 10 m=s in comparison with U 1 7 m=s in each distance
from the wind turbine.
Therefore, the results of this paper can improve a better understanding of the noise generation mechanisms as well as the design
of quieter small Horizontal Axis Wind Turbine. Furthermore, these
results can be exploited to determine the efcient location for
wind turbine installation that the noise radiated has the minimum
annoying to the vicinity residents.
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