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Incorporating High-Fidelity Aerostructural Analyses In Wind Turbine Rotor Optimization, Denis-Gabriel Caprace, Adam Cardoza, Andrew Ning, Marco Mangano, Sicheng He, Joaquim R. R. A. Martins

Faculty Publications

s demand grows for wind turbines with larger blades, the design of future wind turbines must account for multi-physical interactions and an ever-increasing number of design load conditions. One aspect, aerostructural coupling, calls for design tools that are both accurate and computationally efficient. In this paper, we present a combined-fidelity approach that couples high-fidelity computational fluid dynamics and computational solid mechanics simulations, with a conventional aeroelastic turbine modeling tool based on blade element momentum and beam theories. The approach is integrated into a multidisciplinary optimization framework. It takes advantage of the high-fidelity tightly-coupled aerostructural simulations to evaluate the rotor power …