Multipoint high-fidelity CFD-based aerodynamic shape optimization of a 10&thinsp;MW wind turbine

Madsen, Mads H. Aa.; Zahle, Frederik; Sørensen, Niels N.; Martins, Joaquim R. R. A.

doi:https://doi.org/10.5194/wes-4-163-2019

Articles | Volume 4, issue 2

https://doi.org/10.5194/wes-4-163-2019

© Author(s) 2019. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

https://doi.org/10.5194/wes-4-163-2019

© Author(s) 2019. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Articles | Volume 4, issue 2

Research article

|

03 Apr 2019

Research article |

| 03 Apr 2019

Multipoint high-fidelity CFD-based aerodynamic shape optimization of a 10 MW wind turbine

Mads H. Aa. Madsen, Frederik Zahle, Niels N. Sørensen, and Joaquim R. R. A. Martins

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Final revised paper (published on 03 Apr 2019)
Preprint (discussion started on 26 Oct 2018)

Interactive discussion

Status: closed

AC: Author comment | RC: Referee comment | SC: Short comment | EC: Editor comment

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- Supplement

RC1: 'Review wes-2018-66', Anonymous Referee #1, 22 Nov 2018
RC2: 'Interactive comment on “The Second Curvature Correction for the Straight Segment Approximation of Periodic Vortex Wakes” by David H. Wood', Anonymous Referee #2, 03 Dec 2018
EC1: 'Update on paper status', Alessandro Bianchini, 14 Dec 2018
AC1: 'Final author comments', Mads H. Aa. Madsen, 29 Jan 2019

Peer-review completion

AR: Author's response | RR: Referee report | ED: Editor decision

AR by Mads H. Aa. Madsen on behalf of the Authors (29 Jan 2019) Author's response Manuscript

ED: Referee Nomination & Report Request started (30 Jan 2019) by Alessandro Bianchini

RR by Anonymous Referee #1 (12 Feb 2019)

Suggestions for revision or reasons for rejection

The current version of the paper shows a very good implementation of the reviewers’ comments. I would suggest minor changes before publication.

The new structure is better and allows following the content easier. Also, the literature review is now well-arranged.

Page 3 Line 1: Sec. 5 instead of Sec. 5.1

Page 6 Lines 13 ff: I suggest a reordering, as there is some doubling within little lines. Maybe reorder as follows: „… they scale poorly with the number of design variables (Martins et al., 2003). The complex-step derivative […], and mixed-fidelity models (Barrett and Ning, 2018; Zahle et al., 2014). For large numbers of variables, the adjoint […] in the wind energy community (Vorspel et al., 2017). The adjoint method is subject of the next section.

Page 13 Lines 16: I would still mention that the quoted sources show comparable results for aerodynamic applications.

Page 22 Lines 1 ff: I would suggest to focus on the coming section instead of referring to the one before (i.e. „A detailed description of all optimization problems we solve can be found in Sec. 5“ could be deleted). When you name the different cases, you could also give the according subsection number.

Page 23 Line 19: The reduced amount of iterations comes with a reduction of CPU time. I would add the according numbers in the text, as the reduction of iterations is not proportional to the reduction of CPU time.

Page 26 Line 3: „further muddies the picture“ could be phrased better.

Page 27 Line 3: In the text, you compare the achieved improvements for the fine mesh only. This should be mentioned, otherwise the reader has to check with the table on the other page while reading.

Furthermore, I had a quick view on the references and found some typos or missing information.

The following entries have erroneous page information:
1. Anderson 2018
2. Khayatzadeh 2011
3. Maniaci 2011
4. Schramm 2018
5. Sederberg 1986
6. Sorensen 2018
7. Vorspel 2016
8. Yilmaz 2017
9. Zhiquan 1992

Balay 2018a: Missing date viewed

Balay 2018b: Equal URL to Balay 2018a

Barrett 2018: I guess there is no Volume 0

Griewank 2000: Missing subtitle of the book and maybe doi or other number

Sorensen 2017: „og large“

Weide 2006: double doi

Some abbreviations are in capital letters (AIAA, NASA..) some are not (Ewea, Ecfd)

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RR by Joseph Saverin (14 Feb 2019)

ED: Publish subject to technical corrections (15 Feb 2019) by Alessandro Bianchini

ED: Publish subject to technical corrections (22 Feb 2019) by Jakob Mann (Chief editor)

AR by Mads H. Aa. Madsen on behalf of the Authors (01 Mar 2019) Manuscript

Short summary

The wind energy industry relies heavily on CFD to analyze new designs. This paper investigates a way to utilize CFD further upstream the design process where lower-fidelity methods are used. We present the first comprehensive 3-D CFD adjoint-based shape optimization of a 10 MW modern offshore wind turbine. The present work shows that, with the right tools, we can model the entire geometry, including the root, and optimize modern wind turbine rotors at the cost of a few hundred CFD evaluations.