Site-specific considerations for aerodynamic design upgrade of a wind turbine operating in a saharan environment

Abstract

Sand erosion and dust deposition may induce surface irregularities of the blades of a wind turbine deployed in the Sahara, causing performance deterioration. In the current work a multi-objective optimization algorithm is developed to upgrade the aerodynamic blade profile of wind turbines operating in a Saharan environment. As a case study, the rotor of the Nordtank 300 kW horizontal axis wind turbine operating in Hurghada, Egypt is customized for lower sensitivity to surface roughness. The goal is to achieve a high lift-to-drag ratio while simultaneously maintain high resistance to dust deposition and sand erosion. The optimization algorithm is developed in MATLAB using C-language and coupled via ANSYS-ICEM to ANSYS-FLUENT computational fluid dynamics software for a particle-laden flow simulation until the optimization objectives are iteratively met. The optimization process yields a blade with lower sensitivity to surface roughness issues not only offsetting the 10.58% loss in Annual Energy Production (AEP) using the original profile, but actually boosting the AEP by 10.87% for the optimized blade. It is believed that this research may draw attention to the need for site-specific blade design to avoid environmental surface degradation as a result of dust deposition and sand erosion that may be unavoidable in the Saharan environment of countries in the MENA region.