Estudo de erosão de bordo de ataque de pás eólicas via CFD

Abstract

The energy demand is always increasing due to the growth of the world population and consequently the search for energy sources that are inexhaustible is also growing. The emission of greenhouse gases grows together since fossil fuels are still the main sources of energy production. The energy from the winds, called wind energy, is one of the most promising sources because it is clean and inexhaustible. The instruments used to capture the kinetic energy of the wind and transform it into electrical energy are wind turbines and the most used are the three-blade horizontal axis models. The blade is a component that must be treated with great importance when designing a wind turbine, because from it it is possible to know how much energy will be produced, the object of study in this work was the erosion on the leading edge, a process that causes losses in the efficiency of energy production. In this work, flow was simulated in the aerodynamic profile NACA 0012, as a manner of numerical validation and erosion was studied in the profile S814, which is used in wind blades. The simulations were made using the Finnie and Tabakoff erosion models, and it was possible to observe that there were changes in the aerodynamic coefficients, and also in the tensions suffered by the efforts of the pressure fields. Composite materials showed the most promise due to their excellent mechanical properties.