Publications

As demand grows for wind turbines with larger blades, the design of future wind turbines must account for multi-physical interactions and an ever-increasing number of design load conditions. One aspect, aerostructural coupling, calls for design tools that are both accurate and computationally efficient. In this paper, we present a combined-fidelity approach that couples high-fidelity computational fluid dynamics and computational solid mechanics simulations, with a conventional aeroelastic turbine modeling tool based on blade element momentum and beam theories. The approach is integrated into a multidisciplinary optimization framework. It takes advantage of the high-fidelity tightly-coupled aerostructural simulations to evaluate the rotor power production and uses conventional unsteady simulations to add structural sizing constraints. We show that the overall method is effective to obtain improved optimal designs that are resistant to extreme and fatigue loads. Finally, we discuss the computational cost and benefits of the proposed approach for the design of wind turbine rotors.