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Airfoil Design

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Handbook of Wind Energy Aerodynamics

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Abstract

This chapter describes how to carry out an aerodynamic design of airfoils. Performance measures to use when designing airfoils for wind turbines are described where the focus is on the design of airfoils for horizontal axis wind turbines. Mainly the characteristics to be considered in the airfoil design process is described, where the methods used for numerical optimization are only briefly described. The airfoil performance in relation to wind turbine rotor performance is described with the corresponding objective functions, constraints, and design variables in the design process. Also, the available prediction methods are described briefly. A general description of the setup of the design problem in terms of the objective function, the constraints, and the design variables are given, followed by a simple example of how to handle an airfoil design problem. In the end, an outlook is given.

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Acknowledgements

Thank you to my colleagues at DTU Wind Energy, Denmark, and colleagues at other universities and in companies for inspiring discussions. Special thanks to my colleague Anders S. Olsen (DTU Wind Energy, Denmark) for reading the manuscript and making very useful comments.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. DTU Wind Energy, Roskilde, Denmark

    Christian Bak

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  1. Christian Bak
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Correspondence to Christian Bak .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Fraunhofer Institute for Wind Energy and, Oldenburg, Germany

    Bernhard Stoevesandt

  2. TNO-Energy Research Centre of the Nether, Netherlands Organisation for Applied Sci, Petten, The Netherlands

    Gerard Schepers

  3. Siemens Gamesa Renewable Energy, Brande, Denmark

    Peter Fuglsang

  4. Goldwind Americas, Chicago, IL, USA

    Sun Yuping

Section Editor information

  1. Goldwind Americas, 20 N. Wacker Drive, Suite 1375, 60606, Chicago, IL, USA

    Yuping Sun

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Bak, C. (2021). Airfoil Design. In: Stoevesandt, B., Schepers, G., Fuglsang, P., Yuping, S. (eds) Handbook of Wind Energy Aerodynamics. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-05455-7_3-1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-05455-7_3-1

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-030-05455-7

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-030-05455-7

  • eBook Packages: Springer Reference EnergyReference Module Computer Science and Engineering

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