Modeling of Bionic Flow Control Methods for Large-Scale Wind Turbine Blades

Due to complicated working conditions, the normal operating large-scale wind turbine blades are often suffering from some inevitable problems, i.e., friction adhesion, flow separation and acoustic noise, which may significantly affect the aerodynamic performance of the blades and thus the wind turbine system. Therefore, effective measurements must be taken to solve these issues. Correspondingly, several novel bionic flow control methods by mimicking shark skin, whale fin and owl wing, i.e., riblet, leading-edge protuberance and trailing-edge serration, have been recently studied, and good progresses have been made in terms of effectiveness, analysis and mechanism. However, these potential techniques are unable to be widely applied within wind energy community due to the lack of reasonable modeling methods, clearly reflecting the effect of bionic structures on the flow field around, which results in incapability to carry out further optimal design of bionic blade. To this end, this review paper first concentrated on a summary of the control mechanisms of three bionic techniques. Based on this, some feasible ideas of model buildup were proposed. Finally, the flow analyses around the typical blade airfoils were chosen as case studies to verify the feasibility and accuracy of these simulation methods.