ESTUDO DO EFEITO DA ESPESSURA DO AEROFÓLIO SOBRE O AUMENTO ROTACIONAL EM SEÇÕES DE PÁS DE TURBINA EÓLICA

. Understanding the aerodynamic forces on wind turbines is of major importance for their design. Rotational augmentation is a phenomenon observed in simulations and experiments with rotating blades. This phenomenon addresses the increase in aerodynamic load. It is known that the destruction of the radial vorticity attributed to the Coriolis force is related to the reduction of the separation region and, therefore, associated with the rotational effects. This paper describes investigations on the influence of airfoil thickness on the effects of rotational augmentation. Analyzes were performed using Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) considering Coriolis and centrifugal force as source terms in the Navier-Stokes equations and assuming periodicity in the spanwise direction. The results showed that the modified airfoil’s lift coefficient is less sensitive to rotational effects. As for the drag coefficient, the modified airfoil showed an increase, while the original airfoil had a reduction. The distribution of the vorticity destruction term was milder than in other cases with higher angles of attack