A general model for trailing edge serrations simulation on wind turbine airfoils

Trailing edge serrations(TESs) are capable of noticeably suppressing the turbulent trailing edge noise induced by rotating wind turbine blades and become an integral part of a blade. However, the challenges involved in the dimensional design of serration height 2 h, wavelength λ and flap angle are Φ yet to be dealt with in a satisfactory manner. To address the problem, a general model for simulating the effects of serrations on the hydrodynamic and aeroacoustic performance is proposed due to its ease of use and relatively low requirements for user input. The solid serrations are replicated by momentum sources calculated by its aerodynamic forces. Then, a case relevant to wind turbine airfoil is examined, a hybrid improved delay detached eddy simulation(IDDES) method coupled with FW-H integration is deployed to obtain the flow features and far-field sound pressure level. It is found that the modeling method could reproduce the flow field and noise as serrated airfoil.     

A model for universal spatial variations of temperature fluctuations in turbulent Rayleigh-Bénard convection

We propose a theoretical model for spatial variations of the temperature variance σ~2( z, r)( z is the distance from the sample bottom and r the radial coordinate) in turbulent Rayleigh-Bénard convection(RBC).Adapting the "attached-eddy" model of shear flow to the plumes of RBC, we derived an equation for σ~2 which is based on the universal scaling of the normalized RBC temperature spectra. This equation includes both logarithmic and power-law dependences on z/λ_(th), where λ_(th) is the thermal boundary layer thickness. The equation parameters depend on r and the Prandtl number Pr, but have only an extremely weak dependence on the Rayleigh number Ra Thus our model provides a near-universal equation for the temperature variance profile in turbulent RBC.