Simulation of Wind Turbine with OpenFoam
 

Hello,

I am trying to simulate a wind turbine with OpenFoam. The simulation has been solved by Fluent with moving reference frame method, and the wall of the blade and hub with zero relative velocity with respect to adjacent cell ( there is a periodic condition for meshing only 120 grades).( k-epsilon , standard wall function model into fluent)

Now, I want to compare with OpenFoam and study the possibilities to solve this kind of simulations within the wind energy field.

Could anyone help me with some information about how simulate wind turbine simulations or turbomachinary simulations?

Thank you very much.

Hello,

i think you should have a look to MRFSimpleFoam solver and the associated test case.

Regards, Etienne.

I did perform a wind turbine simulation using OpenFOAM. You can have a look at it at this link. There are no setup details there but if you send me an email from the "contact" section, we can discuss details.

Cem

I have sent you an email.

Thanks,

Marce

Hello FOAMers,
I am going to use OF1.6 to simulate horizontal wind turbines as well. As a first step, I am contemplating simulating only a portion of the complete rotor + generator system (discarding nacelle and tower at the moment). I.E. if the turbine has three blades, simulate only one third of the system. Does it make sense? And if so, how can I impose the “symmetry” between the two planes defining my domain?
On the other hand, I could simulate a complete wind turbine using MRFSimpleFoam solver. Does everybody use this last computational solution?
Thanks in advance of any suggestion.
Maddalena

The simulation I have mentioned in my previous post is performed using the MRF approach.

Albcem,

I quickly looked through the text of your link. Looks nice. How did you get away with solving the flow for the entire wind turbine with just 1.5 mio cells? That doesn't seem like a lot. Did you go for a qualitative (streamlines, contours, etc.) result more than a quantitative one (cp, lift, drag, etc.)?

Are you doing more work in this area, and what are your general observations of doing WT-simulations with OpenFOAM?


/Mads

sir i am doing cfd analysis with fluent. i hav done the modling and meshing using gambit now i am doing analysis in fluent but facing some problem with boundary conditions when with rotation of turbine rotor and facing difficulty in finding out the power and power coefficient. or if i can get the axial induction then also i can get power and cp . so please help me out in this regard
thanks

SimpleMRFFoam for Wind Turbines
 

I dont think you can use simpleSRFFoam for wind turbines at high rpm for quantitative results. Heres a link why -

http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&sourc...Z7_egjqzfB1-SA

I'm not sure about MRFFoam. I see most others talking about IcoDymFoam.

link
 

Hi hm86,
I am interested in that paper, but the link does not work. Could you upload the paper here? --> edited: solved, I have downloaded the paper using your link.
Thanks,

mad

hmm, this could be related to a question I posted yesterday.
This is how my "undisturbed" flow field (without wind turbine) looks like with 20rpm:

Attachment 4041

I'm using this 0/Urel - definition:

My understanding so far is that the medium enters the inlet-patch with a momentum. Then, due to centrifugal forces, the flow is deflected to the outer sides and the rotation "slows down" because of friction.
When looking at Uabs I don't get a uniform flow field...

Increasing the RPMs makes things even worse, and a "slip" BC on the "side"-patch doesn't help either.

I wonder how the flow field in the paper mentioned above looks like.

Is there a way to impose this relative rotation to the whole flow field and not only to the patches?:confused:

Body Forces
 

You can try using actuator disks or actuator line models. Body forces may be imposed to the flow. Here is a link to a post on how to do body forces.

http://www.cfd-online.com/Forums/ope...tml#post243278

gl

wind turbine
 

ı need a 3D analysis but ı have not been able to generate the mesh yet, please help me

What type of help?

help
 

thanks for your interest. this is 3D analysis of horizantal axis wind turbine. I am trying to generate a long tunnel and trying to generate rotor in the middle of the tunnel. but the openFoam gives error. I think this is because; meshes are conflicting, and unwanted default faces are appearing.
I am new in OpenFoam. this is my final project.

you should need to create rotor(rotational part) and stator(stationary part) separately, and then merge two grid to identify interface between two part

______
Rasoul

GGI how to
 

hi brhmbysl,

maybe this gives you an idea about the ggi in 1.6-ext.
http://wiki.uni-due.de/OpenFOAM/imag...otatingGGI.pdf


thg

i need a help
 

hi
i'm new in openfoam and i've to simulate HAWT so i used MRFSimpleFoam to solve the problem the set up of the boundary conditions as following

External
{
type ggi;
nFaces 4285;
startFace 1203036;
shadowPatch Interior;
bridgeOverlap false;
zone External_ZONE;
}
Turbine
{
type wall;
nFaces 1260;
startFace 1207321;
}
Outlet
{
type patch;
nFaces 100;
startFace 1208581;
}
Bound1
{
type patch;
nFaces 100;
startFace 1208681;
}
Bound2
{
type patch;
nFaces 100;
startFace 1208781;
}
Inlet
{
type patch;
nFaces 100;
startFace 1208881;
}
Ground
{
type patch;
nFaces 100;
startFace 1208981;
}
Sky
{
type patch;
nFaces 100;
startFace 1209081;
}
Interior
{
type ggi;
nFaces 600;
startFace 1209181;
shadowPatch External;
bridgeOverlap false;
zone Interior_ZONE;
}
)

and i'm using OF16ext
i always get this error can anyone help me


--> FOAM FATAL ERROR:
Face zone name Interior_ZONE not found. Please check your GGI interface definition.

From function label ggiPolyPatch::zoneIndex() const
in file meshes/polyMesh/polyPatches/constraint/ggi/ggiPolyPatch.C at line 639.

FOAM aborting

Aborted

i used snappyHex to mesh the 2 region and then used mergMeshes to combine the 2 cases into 1 case
can anyone help me

Hello,
the answer is quite simple:
You have not defined the cellZones of your mesh as required by GGI probably. Look in the forum for setSet or cellZones, you may find help.

mad

First simulation of wind turbine
 

Hello everyone I answered my own questions for the next newbe :-)


I simulate 120° of the circle. The wind-velocity is 6m/s.
The relative speed of the blade is still missing. The rpm is mentioned to be quite high. My last information is near 280 1/s

1. How did you realize the rotational speed of the blade?
Did you move your entire system including mesh and blade or did you give rotation to your incoming flow?
Just use SRFSimpleFoam. The Mixer Tutorial gives more Information. There you can see where to set the rotational Speed RPM in the SRF-properties

3. How to calculate Forces and Drag?

Use the Forces library already present in OF. More Information here: http://www.cfd-online.com/Forums/ope...tml#post317482


.

I´d be glad for any help :)

Best regards
Tobias