Aerodynamic wind-turbine rotor design using surrogate modeling and three-dimensional viscous-inviscid interaction technique

In this paper a surrogate optimization methodology using a three-dimensional viscous-inviscid interaction code for the aerodynamic design of wind-turbine rotors is presented. The framework presents aunique approach because it does not require the commonly-used blade element momentum (BEM)method. The three-dimensional viscous-inviscid interaction code used here is the accurate and fastMIRAS code developed at the Technical University of Denmark. In comparison with BEM, MIRAS is ahigher-fidelity aerodynamic tool and thus more computationally expensive as well. Designing a rotorusing MIRAS instead of an inexpensive BEM code represents a challenge, which is resolved by using theproposed surrogate-based approach. As a verification case, the methodology is applied to design a modelwind-turbine rotor and is compared in detail with the one designed with BEM. Results demonstrate thatnearly identical aerodynamic performance can be achieved using the new design method and that themethodology is effective for the aerodynamic design of wind-turbine rotors.