Hi all,
is it possible to run AeroDyn as a standalone program? Would be great if yes
Thanks,
Andreas
Dear Andreas,
AeroDyn was developed as a tool for calculating aerodynamic laods within an aero-elastic framework. So it cannot be run on its own.
It would be possible to develop a simple structural model that interfaces with AeroDyn (with no or limited DOFs), but we have not developed one. With the new AeroDyn v13.00.00-bjj interface, however, I don’t think this should be super difficult (at least it should be much easier now than it would have been with an earlier version of AeroDyn).
If all you are interested in is steady state rotor aerodynamics, our WT_Perf code may interest you: wind.nrel.gov/designcodes/simulators/wtperf/.
Best regards,
Thank you for the help,
I already know and used the WT_perf code for aerodynamic simulations, but we are planning to do more than just aerodynamics so I was thinking about Aerodyn as an alternative.
So what would be the easiest way to get some outcomes just for the aerodynamics out of Aerodyn. Couple it with YawDyn or FAST and make the structure stiff. Do you think that’s worth a try. What NREL-codes already exist I could use to trigger Aerodyn?
Another question. Is it possible to control/acess/trigger (sorry I am missing the right word) NREL codes with Matlab? That would be great for our purpose and would save a lot of work 
Thanks a lot,
Andreas
Dear Andreas,
AeroDyn has been coupled to many structural codes, including to YawDyn, FAST, and MSC.ADAMS (other codes have also been coupled by others outside of NREL). YawDyn was the simplest of these, but we dropped support for YawDyn with the release of AeroDyn v13.00.00a-bjj (YawDyn still functions with AeroDyn v12.58). FAST is the next in level of complexity and is the code I suggest you use. The FAST model can be made rigid (by disabling the system flexibilities if that is desireable). FAST also has an interface to MATLAB in that the model can be run within Simulink.
Best regards,
Great Thanks 