Prediction of Horizontal Axis Wind Turbine Acoustics

Wind power industry has been a growing market and maturing technology for several decades. Increasing wind power generation necessitates closer installation of wind turbines to people and their residences. For that reason, wind turbine noise becomes a serious and controversial phenomenon and it is anticipated to become more stringent issue while wind power generation is increased recently. The aim of this study was to propose a methodology to predict the wind turbine blade noise by using two dimensional blade section flows and noise analysis/simulation and combining the noise sources to evaluate the total blade noise with reasonable accuracy.Within the scope of this work, the purpose was to perform a two dimensional flow and noise simulation for the two bladed NREL Phase VI wind turbine with the aid of a commercially available Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) software ANSYS-FLUENT by using User Defined Functions after applying some corrections under certain assumptions. Analysis results were compared with the 12% scaled model of NREL Phase VI wind turbine acoustic noise measurements conducted in In Korea Aerospace Research Institute (KARI) at the low speed wind tunnel. Blade noise of the measurements were compared with the analysis results at different wind speeds of 5.4 m/s, 7.4 m/s, 12.3 m/s, and 13.3 m/s. For the tip region and inboard area of the blade, reasonable agreement was achieved at certain wind speeds. Additionally, the summation of the contribution from the each blade section was used to predict the total noise emission.   

___

  • Fried, L., Qiao, L., Sawyer, S., Shukla, S. “Global Wind Report – Annual Market Update 2014” GWEC, Global Wind Energy Council, Brussels, Belgium, 2014.
  • EREC, European Renewable Energy Council. “Renewable Energy Technology Roadmap 20% by 2020” Renewable Energy House, Brussels, Belgium, 2008.
  • Rogers, A.L., Manwell, J.F., Wright, S. “Wind Turbine Acoustic Noise” Renewable Energy Research Laboratory, Department of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering University of Massachusetts at Amherst, Amended 2006.
  • Gipe, P. “Wind Energy Comes of Age”, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd, Chichester, 1995.
  • Koppen, E., Fowler, K. “International Wind Turbine Noise Legislation Illustrated by a Cross Border Case Study” EWEA Workshop Wind Turbine Sound, 2014.
  • Pedersen, E., Waye, K.P. “Perception and annoyance due to wind turbine noise - a dose response relationship” Journal of Acoustical Society of America, Vol. 116, No. 6, pp. 3460– 3470, December 2004.
  • Van Den Berg, G.P. ”Effects of the wind profile at night on wind turbine sound” Journal of Sound and Vibration 277, pp. 955–970, 2004.
  • Nissenbaum, M.A., Aramini, J.J., Hanning, C.D. “Effects of industrial wind turbine noise on sleep and health” Noise & Health, September - October 2012, Volume 14, pp. 237-243, 2012.
  • Council of Canadian Academies. “Understanding the Evidence: Wind Turbine Noise. Ottawa (ON): The Expert Panel on Wind Turbine Noise and Human Health” Council of Canadian Academies, 2015.
  • Schmidt, J.H., Klokker, M. “Health Effects Related to Wind Turbine Noise Exposure: A Systematic Review” PLoS ONE 9(12):e114183, 2014.
  • Onakpoya, I.J., O’Sullivan, J., Thompson, M.J., Heneghan, C.J. “ The effect of wind turbine noise on sleep and quality of life: A systematic review and meta-analysis of observational studies” Environment International 82, pp. 1-9, 2015.
  • Son, E., Kim, H., Kim, H., Choi, W., Lee, S. “Integrated numerical method for the prediction of wind turbine noise and the long range propagation” Current Applied Physics 10, pp. 316-319, 2010.
  • Guarnaccia, C., Mastorakis, N.E., Quartieri, J. “A mathematical approach for wind turbine noise propagation” Proceedings of the 2011 American Conference on Applied Mathematics and the 5th WSEAS International Conference on Computer Engineering and Applications, pp. 187-194, 2011.
  • Tadamasa, A., Zangeneh, M. “Numerical prediction of wind turbine noise” Renewable Energy 36, pp.1902-1912, 2011.
  • Leishman, J.G. “Challenges in Modeling the Unsteady Aerodynamics of Wind Turbines” Wind Energy 5, pp. 85 - 132, 2002.
  • Simms, D., Schreck, S., Hand, M., Fingersh, L.J. “NREL Unsteady Aerodynamics Experiment in the NASA- Ames Wind Tunnel: A Comparison of Predictions to Measurements” NREL/TP-500-29494, National Renewable Energy Laboratory, 2001.
  • Katinas, V., Marciukaitis, M., Tamasauskiene, M. “Analysis of the wind turbine noise emissions and impact on environment” Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews 58, pp. 825-831, 2016.
  • Göçmen, T., Özerdem, B. “Airfoil optimization for noise emission problem and aerodynamic performance criterion on small scale wind turbines” Energy 46, pp. 62-71, 2012.
  • Lee, S., Lee S. “Numerical and experimental study of aerodynamic noise by a small wind turbine” Renewable Energy 65 , pp. 108-112, 2014.
  • Ramirez, W.A., Wolf, W.R. “Effects of trailing edge bluntness on airfoil tonal noise at low Reynolds numbers” Journal of Brazilian Society of Mechanical Sciences and Engineering, 2015.
  • Lighthill, M.J. “On Sound generated aerodynamically I. General theory” Proceedings of the Royal Society of London. Series A, Mathematical and Physical Sciences, pp.564-587, 1951.
  • Ffowcs Williams J.E., Hawkings D.L. “Sound generation by turbulence and surfaces in arbitrary motion” Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series A, Mathematical and Physical Sciences, Vol. 264, No. 1151, pp. 321-342, 1969.
  • Brentner, S.K., and Farassat, F. “Modeling aerodynamically generated sound of helicopter rotors” Progress in Aerospace Sciences 39, pp.82-120, 2003.
  • Tadamasa, A., Zangeneh, M. “Numerical prediction of wind turbine noise” Renewable Energy 36, pp.1902-1912, 2011.
  • Filios, A.E, Tachos, N.S., Fragias, A.P., Margaris, D.P. “Broadband noise radiation analysis for an HAWT rotor” Renewable Energy 32, pp. 1497-1510, 2007.
  • Di Francescantonio, P. “A new boundary integral formulation for the prediction of sound radiation” Journal of Sound and Vibration 202(4), pp.491-509, 1997.
  • Brentner, K.S., Farassat, F. “An analytical comparison of the acoustic analogy and Kirchhoff formulation for moving surfaces” AIAA Journal 36, no.8, pp.1379-1386, 1998.
  • Rahier, G., Huet, M., Prieur, J. “Additional terms for the use of Ffowcs Williams and Hawkings surface integrals in turbulent flows” Computer and Fluids 120, pp. 158-172, 2015.
  • Hand, M., Simms, D., Fingersh, L., Jager, D., Cotrell, J., Schreck, S., Larwood, S. “Unsteady Aerodynamics Experiment Phase VI: Wind Tunnel Test Configurations and Available Data Campaigns,” NREL/TP-500-29955, National Renewable Energy Laboratory, 2001.
  • Cho, T., Kim,C., Lee,D. “Acoustic measurement for 12% scaled model of NREL Phase VI wind turbine by using beamforming” Korea Aerospace Research Institute, Daejeon 305-333, Current Applied Physics 10, pp. 320 – 325, 2010.
  • ANSYS Inc., Release 14.0, ANSYS FLUENT User’s Guide, 2011.
  • Somers, D.M. “Design and Experimental Results for the S809 Airfoil” NREL/SR-440-6918, National Renewable Energy Laboratory, 1997.
  • Zhu, W.J., Heilskov, N., Shen W.Z., Sorensen, J.N. “Modeling of Aerodynamically Generated Noise From Wind Turbines” Journal of Solar Engineering, Vol 127/527, 2005.
  • Cace, J., ter Horst, E., Sybgellakis, K., Niel, M., Clement, P., Heppener, R., Peirano, E., “Urban Wind Turbines: Guidelines for Wind Turbines for the Built Environment” Wineur Report, 2007.
  • Kaldellis, J.K., Zafirakis, D., Kondili, E., Papapostolou, Chr. “Trends, Prospects and R&D Directions of the Global Wind Energy Sector” Proceedings of EWEA 2012 Annual Event, April 2012.