Wind turbine fluid-structure interaction using an actuator line solver and a finite element solver in a tightly-coupled implementation

A partitioned fluid-structure interaction (FSI) solver is developed from an existing actuator-line method solver and an author-developed structural Finite Element (FE) solver to evaluate the deformation of a wind turbine's blades in response to uniform inflow. The main focus of the present analysis is to assess the importance of blade flexibility on wind turbine response by comparing force and generated power estimates between simulations with rigid and deformable blades. A secondary objective is to improve the understanding of the blade deformation-wind loading coupling by comparing cases with loose and tight coupling between the velocity field and the structural displacements. The present study will provide the framework for future simulations on a refined fluid mesh, which will incorporate spatially and temporally varying loadings from atmospheric boundary layer (ABL) turbulence.