Investigation of leading-edge slat on aerodynamic performance of wind turbine blade

Abstract

In this paper, the numerical simulation was used to investigate the effects of the leading-edge slat installation angles ( β for airfoils from 0° to 40° and β1 for blades from −20° to 40°) on the aerodynamic characteristics of the airfoil and the wind turbine blade. The chord length of the leading-edge slat is 0.1c (the chord length of the clean airfoil). The horizontal and vertical distances from its center to the leading edge of the clean airfoil are 0.005c and 0.009c, respectively. The results indicated that the lift coefficient could be significantly improved by the leading-edge slat (except β = 40°) when the attack angle exceeded 10.2°. For β = 0°, the lift coefficient increased the most. The trailing vortex of the leading-edge slat played an important role at the process of flow control. It could transfer kinetic energy from the bounder layer to its out-flow region. Furthermore, the vorticities of trailing vortex generated by the leading-edge slat with different installation angles were different, promoting several effects on the airfoil at the different cases. The torque of the blade with leading-edge slat (except β1 = −20°) was improved significantly as the leading-edge slat trailing-vortices became stronger with the higher wind-speeds.