Proceedings of ASME IGTI Turbo Expo 2013 ASME/IGTI, 2013, San Antonio, Texas, USA June 3, 2013
Authors: O. Eisele, G. Pechlivanoglou, C. N. Nayeri, C. O. Paschereit

Wind turbine blade design is currently based on the combination of a plurality of airfoil sections along the rotorblade span. The two-dimensional airfoil characteristics are usually measured with wind tunnel experiments or computed by means of numerical simulation codes. The general airfoil input for the calculation of the rotorblade power characteristics as well as the subsequent aerodynamic and aeroelastic loads are based on these two-dimensional airfoil characteristics. In this paper, the effects of inflow turbulence and wind tunnel test measurement deviations are investigated and discussed, to allow considerations of such effects in the rotorblade design process.