Ali Alhamaly

Report 1
Propeller and Wind Turbine Wakes

Introduction
The understanding of wake dynamics of rotating bodies is of
fundamental importance to engineers. Flow over rotating bodies occurs in
many important engineering devices. Turbomachines is a great example in
which the fluid flow happens over rotating bodies (rotor blades). The wake
dynamics behind rotor blades are important field that need to be
understood to great details. This is so because the wakes of the rotor
blades affect the performance of whole turbomachine. Wake dynamics are
also important for wind turbines, especially for the case when the turbines
are installed in a farm.
The inherent complexities in geometry and flow field for rotor
system make the understanding of the wake dynamics rather a hard goal
to achieve. Hence, the study of the wake for a simple geometry body is
important because it allows us to understand the basic fundamental
physics behind the wake dynamics, without including complex geometry
and secondary effects. For this reason, the study of rotating cylinder is a
good start to understand the effect of body rotation on the wake
evolution.

A brief look through the recent literature reveals the fact that a lot
of application of wake dynamics and evolution is with regard to
turbomachinery, propellers, and wind turbines. Based on this fact, I
choose to investigate wake dynamics behind rotating bodies with
application to wind turbines and propellers as my term project for ME 532.

Relevance to Engineering and Industry

There are a lot of engineering application to the study of propeller
and wind turbine wakes. For instance, when wind turbines are placed in
large farms, the downstream turbine rotors are influenced by the wakes of
the upstream turbines. The flow field associated with the wake
corresponds to unsteady loadings to the downstream turbine blades.
Excessive unsteady loading might cause fatigue problems to the blade
structure and also cause performance reductions. Hence understanding
the wake dynamics can help in design the proper location of downstream
turbines. In addition, understanding the loss mechanism in the wake
might lead to a better aerodynamic design of the turbine blades. In
general, wake dynamics and evolution plays essential role in performance,
vibrations, noise and structural problems of rotor blades [1].

Literature Review

Several researchers in the literature want to understand the wake

behind of rotating turbomachinery blades, propellers, and wind turbines.
[2] Reported that in rotating turbomachinery wakes, the dominant crossstream turbulent shear stress may remain of one sign only, hence losing
its antisymmetric nature. This antisymmetric nature exists for non-rotating
blade. Given this simple fact, we can see that the complexity associated
with rotating blades calls for the need to measure the wake of simpler
rotating body. The choice of [2] was to study the wake of circular cylinder
rotating with its axis normal to the free-stream velocity i.e. rotating
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vertical cylinder like a propeller. The flow around a cylinder along with its
wake is well understood and documented in the fluid dynamics research
community. In addition, the cylinder has relatively large drag coefficient.
This leads to a clear wake that can be distinguished based on its width
and depth easily. These reasons were among others that led [2] to study
the rotating cylinder wakes as a mean to understand the wakes of a more
complex geometry like turbomachinery blades. Based on the main
experimental results reported by [2], it was shown that the rotation of the
cylinder altered the wake significantly. The exact effect of rotation on the
wake varies with the dimensionless rotation rate, which was defined in [2]
as the inverse of the Rossby number. Furthermore, the main changes to
the Reynolds normal stresses come from rotationally-induced terms in the
dynamical equation for the Reynolds normal stresses. This means that
although the Reynolds normal stresses do not depend explicitly on the
rotation, they are affected strongly by rotation due to terms in the
Reynolds stress equations that are common to both rotating and nonrotating cylinders.
Recently in the literature, a lot of work has been done on the wake
of rotor system (such as: propellers and wind turbines). Brief look into
recent work on rotor system wakes shows the complexity of such wakes
compared with the rotating cylinder wake. For instance, the short article
by [3] associates the near wake behind the rotor system with strong tip
and hub vortices (the tip vortex called helical vortex as well). These
vortices are formed because the flow behind the rotor consists of vortex
sheets. These sheets arise due to the aerodynamic load distribution along
the span of the rotor [3]. The rotor system has also far wake that is not in
the neat vicinity of the blade. Unlike the near wake, the far wake does not
depend on the rotor characteristics as much. It is governed mainly by
small scale turbulence. It is worth to notice here, that the far wake of the
rotor occurs because of breakdown or instability of the near wake vortical
structure [3]. Hence, full understanding of the wake behind the rotor
requires the understanding of the near wake behavior, its stability, and
the growth of far wake turbulence.
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An extensive and elaborative experimental work on near and far

wake of marine propeller has been done in [1]. Wake of marine propeller
with different blade numbers and advance ratios were studied
systematically and rigorously. In this paper, the authors explain that
multiple factors affect the wake evolution in the near and far wake. These
factors are: the radial and axial varation of the helical geometry of the tip
vortex, interactions between nearby vortices, the deformation of the tip
and hub vortices, and the effect of turbulence and viscosity. The article
explains more in depth about the mechanism of transition from near wake
to far wake structure. The authors shows experimentally that the number
of blades affect the location of instability and transition of the helical tip
vortex. More specifically, the number of the blades affects the distance
between the adjacent helical vortices which in turns affect the interaction
between nearby tip vortices. In regards to the distinction between the
instability location of the hub and tip vortices, it was shown for different
rotor configurations (such as: advance ratio and number of blade) that the
location of instability of the hub vortex is always downstream of the tip
vortex. It is conjectured that this is probably because the instability of the
tip vortex create perturbation that destabilized the hub vortex.
The far wake is characterized by distortion of the tip and hub
vortical structures. In addition, as the distance from the propeller
increases beyond the instability inception location, the vortices become
weaker and weaker. This is due to vorticity diffusion which is a viscous
mechanism. Vorticity diffusion acts to smooth the high pressure gradient
within vortex core until flat profile of pressure is reached in the vortex
core. The paper [1] includes more results and conclusions that are not
included in this brief review. For instance, the paper discusses the chaotic
behavior of the vortex system and also discussed the power spectral
density for instantaneous velocity measurements.
Much work in the literature has been devoted to model the flow field
analytically for propellers and wind turbines. These models vary in their
simplicity, assumptions, and applicability. Some of the models are
intended to give the overall integrated performance of the rotor without
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obtaining details about the flow field itself. Example of these models is the
famous actuator disk theory. This theory approximates the performance of
the rotor by infinite number of blades. These infinite blades represent the
disk. This disk acts as a discontinuity surface in which the flow passing
through it will be exposed to concentrated force (called thrust) [4]. Based
on the thrust value, performance parameters of the rotor can be obtained.
There are several refinements of this basic model which relaxes the
axisymmetric assumption of the actuator disk theory. In addition, some
models allows for varation of loading along the span of the blade [4].
Another type of analytical models is the vortex based formulation
models. The main assumption of these types of models is that for uniform
free stream velocity, the fluid can acquire vorticity through the interaction
with the rotor only. Hence, the vorticity is confined within the rotor wake
and is bounded by the tip vortex [4].
The paper [4], describes new vortex based formulation that solves
for the near wake vortical structure for propeller or wind turbine. Detailed
description of the model with numerical implementation is included in [4].
Here, I provide only very brief description of the overall model.
The model is based on finite core size vortex filaments. The model
uses asymptotic expansion of the Biot-Savart law. This is done to account
for the finite core size filament. The filament core is assumed to be of one
size and has circular top-hat vorticity distribution inside the core filament.
The model determines the steady state wake vortices path along with the
induced velocity field due to the presence of the rotor. The analysis is
done in rotating frame of reference.

Proposed Improvements of the Selected Work

A lot of work and improvement can be done with regards to
understanding the wake of rotor systems. However, constrains related
time and recourses dictate the type of improvements that can be done.
With this in mind, I would like to propose small improvement on the
analysis done in [4]. I would like to extend what has been done in [4] to
include description of the far wake of a wind turbine (or propeller). I would
like to study the effect of viscosity and turbulence on the evolution of the
near wake to a fully distorted and mixed far wake. This small improvement
allows a better description of the performance of the rotor system. In
addition, this improvement (if successful) can be used to study the effect
of the far wake interaction with a downstream rotor.
Method for implementing the Proposed Solution
The proposed solution will be implemented in two main steps. The
first step is to adapt the model proposed by [4] and program it in Matlab.
The programmed version of the model shall have same capabilities as
described in [4]. Verification of the published results in [4] should be the
benchmark to see whether the self-programmed version of the model is
accurate or not. Upon completing and verifying the first step, second step
shall be started. In the second step, I will be using commercial CFD
software to solve for the viscous evolution of the near wake solution. The
CFD software will take as an input the solution obtained from the first
step. The input will be given in terms of the velocity distributions at the
inflow boundary. From the inflow boundary condition, the CFD software will
solve Navier-Stokes equation to determine at the outflow the velocity
distributions. From the velocity distributions, information about the fat
wake will be deduced. It is worth noticing that I am not trying to capture
the instability mechanisms that lead to the breakdown of the vortex
system. Rather, I am interested in the end results of the flow field at far
away distance downstream from the inflow boundary.

Schematic View of the Problem

The basic view of the problem is a shown below in the figure. The
figure is taken from [5]. The figure shows a three bladed wind turbine with
the paths of the helical tip vortices and the hub vortices.

Bibliography
[1 M. Felli, R. Camussi and F. Di Felice, "Mechanisms of Evolution of The
]

Propeller Wake in The Transition and Far Fields," J. Fluid Mech., vol. 682,

pp. 5-53, 2011.

[2 D. Wood, P. Peterson and P. Clausen, "The turbulent wake of a circular
]

cylinder rotating about the streamwise axis," Experiments in Fluids, pp.

375-384, 1994.
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[3 J. N. Sorensen, "Instability of Helical Tip Vortices in Rotor Wakes," J.

]

Fluid Mech., vol. 682, pp. 1-4, 2011.

[4 A. Segalini and P. H. Alfredsson, "A Simplified Vortex Model of Propeller

]

and Wind-Turbine Wakes," J. Fluid Mech., vol. 725, pp. 91-116, 2013.
[5 S. Ivanell, R. Mikkelsen, J. N. Sorensen and D. Henningson, "Stability
]

Analysis of The Tip Vortices of a Wind Turbine," Wind Energy, vol. 13,
pp. 705-715, 2010.