A Solution Method for the Filtered Lifting Line Theory: Article No. 011502

Luis Martinez-Tossas, Dries Allaerts, Emmanuel Branlard, Matthew Churchfield

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

Abstract

The filtered lifting line theory presents a continuous form of the inviscid momentum equations of flow over a lifting device, such as a wing or rotor blade, using body forces without mathematical singularities. This theory is also consistent with an actuator line representation of a lifting device. In this work, we present a reformulation of the equations in terms of the local flow angle along the line, which allows solving the stand-alone equations using multivariate root-finding algorithms. This approach can be used to obtain a fast, computationally inexpensive solution of the loading distribution along a wing without the need to perform computational fluid dynamic simulations. We study the requirements in terms of resolution in the spanwise direction and establish the criteria for spacing and minimum amount of points required along the blade to obtain converged solutions. The solutions are compared to results from large-eddy simulations, and we observed excellent agreement with less than a percent difference in quantities along the blade between the methods.
Original languageAmerican English
Number of pages8
JournalJournal of Fluids Engineering, Transactions of the ASME
Volume147
Issue number1
DOIs
StatePublished - 2025

NREL Publication Number

  • NREL/JA-5000-90389

Keywords

  • actuators
  • algorithms
  • blades
  • computational fluid dynamics
  • flow (dynamics)
  • large eddy simulation
  • resolution (optics)
  • simulation
  • wings

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