Effects of Turbulence Model and Computational Grid on the Calculation Accuracy of the Aerodynamic Performance of S814 Airfoil Based on RANS

Turbulence model and computational grid are playing important roles in calculating the aerodynamic performance of wind turbine airfoils. In order to find a suitable turbulence model and computational grid, to calculate the aerodynamic performance data of wind turbine airfoil more accurately as well as to further understand the nature of flow over an airfoil, this article simulates the flow over the S814-airfoil with the angle of attack (α) at a range of 0° to 30° by trying different turbulence models based on RANS and a series of computational grids. An analysis and comparison of simulated results concludes that the RNGk-ε model and the two-equation transition model based on SST can accumulate more accurately at the angle of attack less than 10°, and when the α is larger than 10°, the SST model has better performance than the other models. In addition, appropriate optimization of the grids on airfoil's suction side and head part and moderate constraint of the total number of the computational grid are both helpful to improve the calculation accuracy.