Hello everyone,
I need to study aeroelastic analysis over a dual rotor wind turbine. The two rotors should be modeled as two different, independent single-rotor turbines. Something like:
I want to analyze the wake effects of the small rotor within the system.
Would this be possible with OpenFast?
Best Regards,
Enrique Perez
Dear Enrique,
I would say that OpenFAST could not model such a dual rotor configuration without changes to the source code. Such a dual rotor configuration will have strong aerodynamic interaction, and so, is likely best handled by a CFD or a vortex-based aerodynamic formulation. The free-wake vortex model, OLAF, has recently been introduced within OpenFAST’s aerodynamics module, AeroDyn, but the input file is not set up support dual rotor configuration. Similarly for OpenFAST’s interface to CFD solvers (ExaWind, including AMR-Wind and Nalu-Wind, or SOWFA/OpenFOAM). Neither is there any structural or control features in OpenFAST to support dual rotor configurations. I’m sure it would possible to model such a system with changes to the source code, but these changes would likely be extensive.
Best regards,