Numerical Simulation of the Effect of a Co-flow Jet on the Wind Turbine Airfoil Aerodynamic Characteristics

A co-flow jet active flow control method is applied to the wind turbine S809 airfoil, and numerically studied by solving Renolds-Averaged Navier-Stokes equations. The co-flow jet airfoil is designed with an injection slot near the leading edge and a suction slot near the trailing edge on the airfoil suction surface. A high-speed jet is injected tangentially into the main flow, and in the meanwhile the same amount of mass flow is drawn into the suction slot. The solver is validated by comparing the computed results with the baseline experiment measurement. The flow around the co-flow jet airfoil is simulated at a jet momentum coefficient of 0.12, showing that the co-flow jet has a significantly positive effect in increasing lift, stall margin, and drag reduction. The present co-flow jet concept is proved to be an effective and promising active flow control method in the future wind turbine application.