Leading edge erosion and particle-laden turbulent flow: effects of the turbulence intensity and presence of gravity

This study presents results from a laboratory ۳D turbulent flow experiment simulating a stagnation point at the leading edge of a wind turbine to investigate erosion caused by airborne particles. In a separate experiment, the flow is seeded with tracer and inertial particles, and the Taylor microscale Reynolds number (Re) ranges from ۱۰۰ to ۱۵۰ and undergoes vertical strain deformation with a mean rate of ۸ s¹¹. The Lagrangian particle tracking (LPT) technique is employed to measure particle motion in the presence of gravity a factor that has not been thoroughly examined in numerical studies due to its complexity and computational cost. Each experiment, conducted at varying turbulence intensities, is repeated ۲۰ times to ensure statistically robust measurements. The influence of turbulence intensity is analyzed, and results show that increasing turbulence intensity leads to a ۱۹%-۲۳% increase in the erosion ratio. The normalized Reynolds stress indicates that inertial particles experience greater fluctuations than tracers under the same turbulence intensity. Moreover, higher turbulence intensity has a more pronounced effect on tracer particles. Since inertial particles are heavier than tracers, they could be more strongly influenced by gravity.

کلیدواژه ها:

Wind turbine ، energy ، leading edge ، erosion ، turbulence