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<front>
<journal-meta>
<journal-id journal-id-type="publisher">WESD</journal-id>
<journal-title-group>
<journal-title>Wind Energy Science Discussions</journal-title>
<abbrev-journal-title abbrev-type="publisher">WESD</abbrev-journal-title>
<abbrev-journal-title abbrev-type="nlm-ta">Wind Energ. Sci. Discuss.</abbrev-journal-title>
</journal-title-group>
<issn pub-type="epub">2366-7621</issn>
<publisher><publisher-name></publisher-name>
<publisher-loc>Göttingen, Germany</publisher-loc>
</publisher>
</journal-meta>
<article-meta>
<article-id pub-id-type="doi">10.5194/wes-2026-72</article-id>
<title-group>
<article-title>Multi-Objective Evolutionary Optimization of Wind Turbine Airfoils Incorporating Leading-Edge Roughness Insensitivity</article-title>
</title-group>
<contrib-group><contrib contrib-type="author" xlink:type="simple"><name name-style="western"><surname>Cameron</surname>
<given-names>Ryan</given-names>
<ext-link>https://orcid.org/0009-0003-5267-0321</ext-link>
</name>
<xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff1">
<sup>1</sup>
</xref>
</contrib>
<contrib contrib-type="author" xlink:type="simple"><name name-style="western"><surname>Lackner</surname>
<given-names>Matthew</given-names>
<ext-link>https://orcid.org/0009-0001-9736-2598</ext-link>
</name>
<xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff1">
<sup>1</sup>
</xref>
</contrib>
</contrib-group><aff id="aff1">
<label>1</label>
<addr-line>University of Massachusetts Amherst, Amherst, MA, USA</addr-line>
</aff>
<pub-date pub-type="epub">
<day>28</day>
<month>04</month>
<year>2026</year>
</pub-date>
<volume>2026</volume>
<fpage>1</fpage>
<lpage>28</lpage>
<permissions>
<copyright-statement>Copyright: &#x000a9; 2026 Ryan Cameron</copyright-statement>
<copyright-year>2026</copyright-year>
<license license-type="open-access">
<license-p>This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. To view a copy of this licence, visit <ext-link ext-link-type="uri"  xlink:href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/</ext-link></license-p>
</license>
</permissions>
<self-uri xlink:href="https://wes.copernicus.org/preprints/wes-2026-72/">This article is available from https://wes.copernicus.org/preprints/wes-2026-72/</self-uri>
<self-uri xlink:href="https://wes.copernicus.org/preprints/wes-2026-72/wes-2026-72.pdf">The full text article is available as a PDF file from https://wes.copernicus.org/preprints/wes-2026-72/wes-2026-72.pdf</self-uri>
<abstract>
<p>Wind turbine airfoil design has historically targeted three objectives: high lift coefficient (&lt;em&gt;C&lt;sub&gt;L&lt;/sub&gt;&lt;/em&gt;), high lift-to-drag ratio (&lt;em&gt;C&lt;sub&gt;L&lt;/sub&gt;/C&lt;sub&gt;D&lt;/sub&gt;&lt;/em&gt;), and insensitivity to leading-edge roughness (LER). The airfoils developed in the 1980s and 1990s for these objectives remain in widespread use today, yet the trade-offs among these competing goals have never been systematically mapped using modern global optimization methods. This paper develops a multi-objective evolutionary strategy (ES) to compute Pareto-optimal airfoil sets that reveal these trade-offs explicitly. The ES is initialized from a symmetric NACA airfoil rather than an existing wind turbine design, uses a Chebyshev-based CST parameterization, and is rigorously tuned via parameter studies. At the outer bounds of the Pareto front, the optimized airfoils improve upon the DU 93-210 reference by 87 % in &lt;em&gt;C&lt;sub&gt;L&lt;/sub&gt;&lt;/em&gt;, 26 % in &lt;em&gt;C&lt;sub&gt;L&lt;/sub&gt;/C&lt;sub&gt;D&lt;/sub&gt;&lt;/em&gt;, and reduce ∆&lt;em&gt;C̄&lt;/em&gt;&lt;sub&gt;&lt;em&gt;L&lt;/em&gt;,LER&lt;/sub&gt; to near zero. These gains are driven largely by increased camber; when a practical camber constraint of 5 % is applied, improvements of 33 % in &lt;em&gt;C&lt;sub&gt;L&lt;/sub&gt;&lt;/em&gt; and 16 % in &lt;em&gt;C&lt;sub&gt;L&lt;/sub&gt;/C&lt;sub&gt;D&lt;/sub&gt;&lt;/em&gt; are still realized with near-complete LER insensitivity. A key finding is that, counter to conventional design wisdom, aft-loading correlates with reduced LER insensitivity for the optimized airfoils: roughness forces boundary-layer transition near the leading edge, producing a thicker turbulent boundary layer that separates earlier in the aft recovery region, negating the expected benefit of aft-loaded lift distributions. The framework, including the tuned ES and optimized airfoil database, is made available for public use.</p>
</abstract>
<counts><page-count count="28"/></counts>
<funding-group>
<award-group id="gs1">
<funding-source>National Science Foundation</funding-source>
<award-id>2021693</award-id>
</award-group>
<award-group id="gs2">
<funding-source>U.S. Department of Energy</funding-source>
<award-id>DE-EE0011269</award-id>
</award-group>
</funding-group>
</article-meta>
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