Including Swirl in the Actuator Disk Analysis of Wind Turbines

Abstract

It is shown that the presence of swirl in the wake of a wind turbine complicates the simple actuator disk analysis that provides such basic results as the Lanchester-Betz limit on the power coefficient. The simple analysis remains valid at high tip speed ratio for a sufficiently small core radius of the hub vortex. As the tip speed ratio decreases, the present analysis eventually becomes invalid. It is, however, reasonable to conclude that including the effects of the hub vortex causes the maximum power coefficient to increase above the Lanchester-Betz limit with decreasing tip speed ratio. The extent to which this conclusion depends on the assumed vortex model was investigated briefly by considering a more general model for the hub vortex. The results strongly imply that some account of the vortex structure of the wake will be required to resolve fully the effects of swirl. Unfortunately there are no measurements currently available for the hub vortex.