Trouble modeling wind turbine NREL Phase IV

Seervan · November 2, 2020, 10:53

I am having a hard time simulating NREL PHASE IV Wind Turbine. I use K-w turbulence model, tried polyhedral and trimmer messier, different sizes of prism layer thickness and numbers and even different turbulence models. I wan to get pressure coefficient over span-wise foil section and the power. To lower my Y+ I added extra prism layers but that resulted in much lower power calculation. For higher inlet wind speeds this just gets much worse so any help would be greatly appreciated.

fluid23 · November 6, 2020, 08:46

You mesh needs a lot of work. Starting with image 1, your growth rate away from the blade is too aggressive. I am also not sure that your domain is large enough, but its hard to tell. Also there is a prism mesh at your rotating region interface that is not needed.

Image 2 - lots more issues. Your surface mesh isn't refined enough and your leading edge is junk. Likewise, your trailing edge prism mesh totally breaks down. I see no wake refinement at all and a mesh that is generally too coarse to get results that can be validated.

Image 3 - the scale on your y+ graph makes it impossible to see what the distribution is. If you are using k-w and the near wall model then you need y+<=1. However, I think the default is an k-w SST with an all wall model that uses a blending function. With k-w SST/all wall model you can have 1<y+<100 (some say as high as 300), but you won't be capturing the viscous sublayer. if that is important to you. This also breaks down in the blending function, I think between 5<y+<50 it interpolates the near wall and high wall model to approximate a solution.

In general, pay attention to volume change, aspect ratio and prism layer retraction. These can all get you into trouble with your mesh.

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November 6, 2020, 08:46		#2
fluid23 Senior Member Matt Join Date: Aug 2014 Posts: 947 Rep Power: 17	You mesh needs a lot of work. Starting with image 1, your growth rate away from the blade is too aggressive. I am also not sure that your domain is large enough, but its hard to tell. Also there is a prism mesh at your rotating region interface that is not needed. Image 2 - lots more issues. Your surface mesh isn't refined enough and your leading edge is junk. Likewise, your trailing edge prism mesh totally breaks down. I see no wake refinement at all and a mesh that is generally too coarse to get results that can be validated. Image 3 - the scale on your y+ graph makes it impossible to see what the distribution is. If you are using k-w and the near wall model then you need y+<=1. However, I think the default is an k-w SST with an all wall model that uses a blending function. With k-w SST/all wall model you can have 1<y+<100 (some say as high as 300), but you won't be capturing the viscous sublayer. if that is important to you. This also breaks down in the blending function, I think between 5<y+<50 it interpolates the near wall and high wall model to approximate a solution. In general, pay attention to volume change, aspect ratio and prism layer retraction. These can all get you into trouble with your mesh.