Computational Aerodynamic Investigation of a Very Thick Wind Turbine Airfoil CAS-W1-450 With Blunt Trailing Edge

With the development of large-scale wind turbines, airfoils used in the inboard section of a blade play an increasingly important role in power generation, contributing to the development of thick airfoils. In order to investigate the numerical simulation method of large-thickness airfoil, this paper studies the CAS-W1-450 airfoil, and simulates the airfoil under the experimental condition. The results indicate that the calculated lift coefficients agree well with the experimental data in linear region, 3D simulation predicts better results than 2D simulation after stall. Pressure distributions of the airfoil at different spanwise positions reflect a three-dimensional characteristic of flow separation. Furthermore, the flow exhibits unsteady characteristics at high angles of attack due to the shedding vortices in the wake. With the increase of angle of attack, the fluctuation amplitude of lift coefficient curve becomes more significant while the fluctuation frequency decreases. © 2020, Science Press. All right reserved.