Contribution to the aerodynamic study of the air- sand flow around a wind turbine blade

Abstract

The subject of this thesis deals with the numerical simulation of turbulent flow around a horizontal axis wind turbine (HAWT) blade installed in Saharan climate. To do this, a 3D CFD method was developed based on the resolution of the Reynolds averaged Navier-Stokes equations (RANS). This thesis work focuses on two parts. The first part is to study the ability of different RANS turbulence models to predict the aerodynamic performances and the velocity in the wake of HAWTs. The second part is to investigate the sand effects on the aerodynamic performance of wind turbines installed in a desert environment based on an Eulerian-Lagrangian approach. The results of the simulation showed that the choice of the turbulence model has a significant effect on the accuracy of numerical predictions, especially for high wind speeds. It was also noted that the presence of sand particles could significantly reduce the aerodynamic performance.