COMPARISON OF CFD AND XFOIL AIRFOIL ANALYSES FOR LOW REYNOLDS NUMBER

COMPARISON OF CFD AND XFOIL AIRFOIL ANALYSES FOR LOW REYNOLDS NUMBER

Blade Element Momentum (BEM) theory is generally used technique for calculation of aerodynamic performance of such turbine application. To obtain close results with blade element momentum theory, aerodynamic data of airfoil has to be as correct as possible. Nowadays, Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) is used for optimization and design of turbine application. Lift coefficient, drag coefficient and Lift coefficient over drag coefficient are significant parameters for turbine application. Panel method and an integral boundary layer formulation are combined in the XFOIL code for the analysis of potential ?ow around the airfoils. In this study, XFOIL code, Transition SST k-omega model was used to predict the aerodynamic performance at low Reynolds number (Re=3x105 and 4x105). The results were compared and CFD results and XFOIL code result are compatible with each other until stall angle. Also, lift coefficient over drag coefficient was tried to optimize by changing the airfoil geometry.