The influence of the bound vortex on the aerodynamics of curved wind turbine blades

Passive load alleviation on wind turbine blades can be achieved through geometric bend-twist coupling, for example by sweeping the blade backwards. In order to obtain the correct load distribution of a curved blade with in-plane sweep and/or out-of-plane dihedral, the influence of the blade shape on the aerodynamics must be modelled correctly. This includes the influence of the curved bound vortex, and it is especially important when designing a wind turbine blade with aeroelastic tailoring. In this paper, the background for modelling the curved bound vortex influence will be described in detail and a modified method is proposed. The proposed method of bound vorticity modelling is compared for curved and straight translating wings as well as wind turbine blades with results from a panel code and a Navier-Stokes solver. From this comparison, the advantages of the current modification with respect to the other lifting-line implementations are shown. The method proposed in the present work is general and applicable to any lifting-line like model.