Abstract:
A new concept airfoil configuration is presented for wind turbine. A cave on the upper surface near the trailing edge is designed to generate a trapped vortex in the cave. The trapped vortex is used to stabilize the separated flow when the airfoil at high angle of attack. Combine with the Gurney flap, the airfoil with the cave behaves very good aerodynamic characteristics at wide range of incidences, especially at high incidences. The method is used on the wellknown FFA-W3-301 turbine airfoil. By the numerical simulation, it is shown that the changed airfoil has higher lift than the original airfoil at same angle of attack, and the stall angle of attack increases from 12 degree to 18 degree. Therefore, the airfoil can be used for a wide range of incidences. The design concept is believed to be investigated valuably for wind turbine.