Energy Conversion and Management 99 (2015) 210220

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Energy Conversion and Management

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/enconman

Aerodynamic noise prediction of a Horizontal Axis Wind Turbine using

Improved Delayed Detached Eddy Simulation and acoustic analogy
Masoud Ghasemian, Amir Nejat
School of Mechanical Engineering, University of Tehran, Tehran, Iran

a r t i c l e

i n f o

Article history:
Received 4 January 2015
Accepted 6 April 2015
Available online 28 April 2015
Keywords:
Horizontal Axis Wind Turbine
Wind turbine noise
Aerodynamic noise
Turbulence

a b s t r a c t
This paper presents the results of the aerodynamic and aero-acoustic prediction of the ow eld around
the National Renewable Energy Laboratory Phase VI wind turbine. The Improved Delayed Detached Eddy
Simulation turbulence model is applied to obtain the instantaneous turbulent ow eld. The noise
prediction is carried out using the Ffowcs Williams and Hawkings acoustic analogy. Simulations are
performed for three different inow conditions, U = 7, 10, 15 m/s. The capability of the Improved
Delayed Detached Eddy Simulation turbulence model in massive separation is veried with available
experimental data for pressure coefcient. The broadband noises of the turbulent boundary layers and
the tonal noises due to the blade passing frequency are predicted via ow eld noise simulation. The
contribution of the thickness, loading and quadrupole noises are investigated, separately. The results
indicated that there is a direct relation between the strength of the radiated noise and the wind speed.
Furthermore, the effect of the receiver location on the Overall Sound Pressure Level is investigated.
2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction
An increasing need for energy coupled with global warming has
caused to exploring new alternatives to meet energy requirements
[1]. One of the most promising renewable sources is wind energy
[2]. In particular, there is an interest to develop small wind turbines for urban and suburban applications [3]. However, wind
energy also has several disadvantages that stand in the way of
wind turbine technology becoming popular. One of its major problems is societal rejection of wind turbines in developed areas due
to acoustic pollution. Aeroacoustic noise from wind turbine may
be a cause of annoyance from people living in the neighborhood
of the turbines, particularly those neighborhoods with the low
ambient noise level [4]. Noise emitted from an operating wind turbine can be divided into mechanical noise and aerodynamic noise.
Mechanical noise originates from different machinery components,
such as the generator and the gearbox. Aerodynamic noise is radiated from the blades and is mainly associated with the interaction
of turbulence with the blade surface [5]. Machinery noise can be
reduced efciently by well-known engineering methods Such as
vibration suppression, vibration isolation and fault detection techniques [4], whereas reduction of aerodynamic noise still represents
a problem, and aerodynamic noise is the dominating noise
Corresponding author.
E-mail address: nejat@ut.ac.ir (A. Nejat).
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.enconman.2015.04.011
0196-8904/ 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

mechanism. Therefore, it is important to identify and predict the

most important noise sources.
Traditionally, noise prediction was performed using empirical
or semi-empirical considerations. In recent years, because of the
computational technology advances, the interest in the computational aeroacoustics has grown noticeably. The use of
Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) for wind turbines has made
it possible to achieve an accurate design tool, but this use has been
limited to date because of the difculties encountered by traditional Reynolds-Averaged Navier Stokes (RANS) turbulence models
in accurately predicting the highly unsteady features that are key
in the prediction of the noise of the wind turbine [6]. Large Eddy
Simulation (LES) method has superiority compared with RANS.
Unlike the RANS method, it resolves directly all the large scales,
which contain the most energy. The small scales, or eddies behave
in a universal way, and are simply modeled. However, LES is still
computationally expensive for high Reynolds numbers and industry applications. This issue is tackled by using hybrid RANS-LES
methods. The hybrid methods are a combination between the statistical RANS and LES methods. The basic principle in these methods is to model the boundary layer using a RANS turbulence model,
whereas LES is used to resolve the detached eddies and separation
regions in the fareld.
Tadamasa and Zangeneh [7] predicted the noise radiated from
the rotating Horizontal Axis Wind Turbine (HAWT) blades. They
used a RANS approach with Shear Stress Transport (SST) k  x

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M. Ghasemian, A. Nejat / Energy Conversion and Management 99 (2015) 210220

Nomenclature
a0
Cp
d
f
H
k
lIDDES
lRANS
M

p
Pij
r
Sij
t
T ij
Uj
Un

vn

speed of sound (m/s)

pressure coefcient
distance to the nearest wall
frequency (Hz)
Heaviside function
turbulent kinetic energy m2 =s2
IDDES length scale
RANS length scale
mach number
acoustic pressure (Pa)
compressive stress tensor
distance to the receiver (m)
strain rate
time (s)
Lighthill stress tensor
velocity (m/s)
uid velocity in the normal direction (m/s)
normal velocity of the integration surface (m/s)
wall unit

Greeksymbols
d f
Dirac delta function
l
molecular viscosity (kg/ms)
lt
turbulent viscosity (kg/ms)
q
density (kg/m3)

based turbulence model for aerodynamic calculation and Ffowcs

Williams-Hawking (FW-H) equation for aeroacoustics prediction.
They investigated the effects of wind speed and rotational speed
on the total noise radiation. Their results showed that the thickness
noise increases continuously with increment in the rotational
speed. Cho et al. [8] measured acoustic noise for a scaled model
of NREL Phase VI wind turbine. They used a microphone array to
identify the noise source position of the blade. Their results
showed that the main acoustic noise source position moves toward
the blade tip as the frequency increases and the noise level at low
frequency below 2 kHz has much higher when the blade is in a stall
condition. Chourpouliadis et al. [9] carried out a comparative study
of the noise emissions from two interconnected wind farms. Their
results showed that the predicted noise signals prove to be within
the limits of recent regulations concerning the installation of wind
farms. The aerodynamic and acoustic optimization process with
decreasing the noise emission levels while increasing the aerodynamic performance can be found in study conducted by Gmen
and zordem [10]. Their results show that redesigned airfoils have
lower levels of noise emission and higher lift to drag ratios. Mo and
Lee [11] numerically predicted the characteristics of aerodynamics
noise generated from rotating wind turbine blades using incompressible large eddy simulation. The far-eld aerodynamic noise
for frequency below 500 Hz was modeled using FW-H analogy.
They studied the aerodynamic noise due to the tip vortex-trailing
edge interaction by local cross ows along the trailing edges. Lee
and Lee [12] predicted aerodynamic noise from a 10 kW wind turbine using semi-empirical models. They found that trailing edge
bluntness noise can be a dominant noise source for small wind turbines unless the wind turbine blades have very sharp trailing
edges. Recently, Mohamed [13] carried out several noise evaluations of H-rotor Darrieus wind turbines. He studied the blade
shape, the tip-speed ratio and the solidity effects on radiated noise.
Results indicated that the higher solidity and higher tip-speed ratio
rotors produce much more noise than the normal turbines. His
study was based on a two-dimensional URANS (Unsteady RANS)
simulation which neglected three-dimensional effects.

sij
s
x

tensor of stress
retarded time (s)
rotational speed (rpm)

Subscripts
L
loading noise
n
component in surface normal direction
T
thickness noise
0
undisturbed condition
Abbreviations
CFD
Computational Fluid Dynamic
FW-H
Ffowcs Williams and Hawkings
FFT
Fast Fourier Transform
IDDES
Improved Delayed Detached Eddy Simulation
HAWT Horizontal Axis Wind Turbine
LES
Large Eddy Simulation
NREL
National Renewable Energy Laboratory
OASPL
Overall Sound Pressure Level
PISO
Pressure Implicit with Splitting of Operator
RANS
Reynolds-Average Navier Stokes
SPL
Sound Pressure Level
URANS Unsteady RANS
TKE
Turbulent Kinetic Energy
URANS Unsteady RANS
Several previous studies of the HAWTs noise used URANS
approaches which these models tend to be overly dissipative and
have been found to be poorly suited for prediction separated ow
typically encountered at high wind speed. Furthermore, due to
their inherent time-averaged nature, direct acoustic predictions
derived from RANS are questionable. This study addresses some
aspects of wind turbine noise generation and propagation not covered or not fully understood in the literature such as the role of
thickness, loading and quadrupole noises at different frequencies
and the effects of wind speed on ow separation and noise
generation.
This paper has used Improved Delayed Detached Eddy
Simulation (IDDES) to predict aerodynamic noise radiated from
the NREL Phase VI wind Turbine. The current study is an accurate
three-dimensional CFD unsteady simulation for aerodynamic noise
prediction of the ow around the NREL Phase VI wind turbine. The
IDDES turbulence model is conducted to obtain the instantaneous
turbulent ow eld. The noise predictions are performed by the
FW-H acoustic analogy formulation. This paper focuses on the
broadband noises of the turbulent boundary layers and tonal
noises related to the passage of the blade. The surface
pressure coefcients for three different inow conditions
U 1 7; 10; 15 m=s were compared with the experimental data
by [14]. The effect of distance and wind speed on the Sound
Pressure Level spectrum and the Overall Sound Pressure Level
(OASPL) is studied. Furthermore, the contribution of the thickness,
loading and quadrupole noises were investigated, separately.
The purpose of this study is to evaluate the capability of the
IDDES turbulence model in the aerodynamic prediction of wind
Table 1
The contribution of different sources in the total noise.
U 1 (m/s)

Thickness and loading noises

(dB)

Quadrupole noise
(dB)

Total noise
(dB)

7
10
15

46.7
53.5
60.7

49.3
58.6
64.6

51.2
59.8
66.1

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M. Ghasemian, A. Nejat / Energy Conversion and Management 99 (2015) 210220

turbines and also, investigate the noise generation mechanisms in

operating HAWTs.
2. Governing equations
2.1. IDDES formulation
The three-dimensional unsteady incompressible NavierStokes
equations have been solved by the Improved Delayed Detached
Eddy Simulation technique. The IDDES turbulence model is a
hybrid RANS-LES model based on modication in the length scale
of the dissipation rate term in the Turbulent Kinetic Energy (TKE)
transport equation of the Menters (SST) k  x model [15].




 
@ qk @ quj k
@
1
@k
qk3=2
sij Sij 

l lt
@xj
@t
@xj
@xj
rk
LIDDES

where q; k; t; uj ; l; lt ; sij and Sij are the density, turbulent kinetic

energy, time, velocity, molecular viscosity, turbulent viscosity, tensor of stress and mean strain rate, respectively.
The IDDES length scale LIDDES is dened as [16]:

LIDDES



~f d 1 f e LRANS 1  ~f d LLES

where the length scales of RANS and LES are dened as:

T ij qui uj Pij  a20 q  q0 dij

where Pij is the compressive stress tensor that includes the surface
pressure and viscous stress.
The second term is related to the dipole or loading noise and the
last term correspond to the monopole or thickness noise. Thickness
and loading terms are surface distribution sources as indicated by
the presence of the delta function df while the quadrupole term
is a volume distribution of sources indicated by Heaviside function
Hf . The wave Eq. (3) can be integrated analytically under the
assumptions of the free-space ow and the absence of obstacles
between the sound sources and the receivers. The complete solution
consists of surface integrals and volume integrals. The surface integrals represent the contributions from monopole and dipole acoustic
sources and partially from quadrupole sources, whereas the volume
integrals represent quadrupole (volume) sources in the region outside the source surface. The contribution of the volume integrals
becomes small when the ow is low subsonic, and the source surface
encloses the source region and can be neglected. Thus, acoustic pressure p0 which is mentioned in Eq. (3) is composed as:

p0 ~
x; t p0T ~
x; t p0L ~
x; t

k
b x

LLES C DES D

4pp0T ~
x; t

For
the
IDDES,
the
grid
scale
is
redened
as
D minfmaxfC w Dmax ; C w d; Dmin g; Dmax g, where C w is a fundamental
empirical constant, d the distance to the nearest wall, Dmin is


min Dx ; Dy ; Dz and Dmax is max Dx ; Dy ; Dz . Function ~f d is dened
as maxf1  f dt ; f B g, which is determined by both the geometry
part f B and the ow part 1  f dt . The detailed information can be
found in [17].


1 @ 2 p0
@2

 r2 p0
T ij Hf
2
2
@xi @xj
a0 @t


@

Pij nj qui un  v n df

@xi
@
fq0 v n qun  v n df g
@t

"

q0 U_ n U n_

dS
r1  M r 2 ret
"
#
q0 U n rM_ r a0 Mr M2

f 0

r 2 1  Mr 3

f 0

dS

ret

and

4p

p0L ~
x; t

2.2. Aeroacoustic formulation

The Ffowcs-William and Hawkings (FW-H) method [18], the
most general form of Lighthill acoustic analogy [19], is used to predict the fareld noise. The FW-H method is appropriate for the prediction of sound generated by rigid bodies in arbitrary motion and
is an inhomogeneous wave equation that can be derived by manipulating the continuity equation and the NavierStokes equations.
The FW-H equation can be written as [20]:

where ~
x is the observer position, t is the observer time, the subscripts T and L correspond to thickness (monopole) and loading
(dipole) components, respectively, and as follows [21]:

1=2

LRANS

a0

"

L_ r

"

Lr  LM

dS
3
r1  M r 2 ret
f 0 r 2 1  M r
3
2 
Z
_ r a0 M r M 2
rM
1
4Lr
5 dS

a0 f 0
r2 1  M r 3
f 0

#
dS
ret

ret

where

Ui v i

q
u  v i
q0 i

^ j qui un  v n
Li Pij n
The various subscripted quantities appearing in (6) and (7) are the
inner products of a vector and a unit vector implied by the sub!

where un is the uid velocity in the direction normal to the integration surface, v n is the normal velocity of the integration surface, df
is Dirac delta function and Hf is Heaviside function. Subscript, 0,
denes the value in undisturbed medium and the primed value represents the difference between the value in real state and in the
undisturbed medium (e.g. p0 p  p0 .
The shape and the motion of the control surface are dened by
x; t 0, with f < 0 for its interior and f > 0 for its exterior.
f ~
The terms in the right-hand side of Eq. (3) refer to different
mechanisms of sound production. The rst source term involves
Lighthill stress tensor and shows that the time-dependent stresses
generate sound. Such sources are called quadrupoles. Lighthill
stress tensor is dened as:

r and U n U ~
n where ~
r and ~
n denote
script. For instance, Lr L ~
the unit vectors in the radiation and wall-normal directions, respectively. The dot over a variable denotes the source-time differentiation of that variable. The Mach number vector M i is the local surface
velocity vector divided by the freestream sound speed. The subscript ret denotes that the integrand is evaluated at the retarded
time, s dened as:

st

r
a0

where t; r and a0 are receiver time, the distance to the receiver and
the speed of sound, respectively.
3. Problem description
The NREL Phase VI wind turbine is a two-bladed rotor. The
geometry of the blade is based on the S809 airfoil. The radius of
the blades is 5.029 m and the rated power of the wind turbine is

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M. Ghasemian, A. Nejat / Energy Conversion and Management 99 (2015) 210220

Fig. 1. Schematic of computational grid near the blade (a) computational domain, (b) grid near blade, and (c) boundary layer grid.
450

400

350

Torque [N.m]

19.8 kW. The details about the blade geometry can be found in the
NREL/NASA Ames Phase VI unsteady experiment [14].
A 3-D incompressible unsteady computational uid dynamics
solver, Ansys Fluent 15, based on the nite volume method is
employed to solve the NavierStokes equations using IDDES technique. The uid is assumed to be incompressible as the free-stream
Mach number is low M 0:0206. Due to the incompressibility of
the ow, the pressure-based solver is chosen, which is traditionally
implemented to solve low-speed incompressible ows. The PISO
(Pressure Implicit with Splitting of Operator) algorithm is chosen
for coupling the velocitypressure equations. Spatial discretization
has been preceded using a least squares cell based algorithm for
gradients, the bounded central differencing scheme for momentum, second order upwind scheme for both turbulent kinetic
energy and specic dissipation rate. A bounded second order implicit scheme was used for transient algorithm.
The computational domain consists of two regions; a rotating
region and a stationary region. To simulate rotating blade with
respect to the stationary outer domain the sliding mesh method
is used with a half-cylindrical interface between both domains.

300

250

200

150

100

2E+06

4E+06

6E+06

8E+06

Number of elements in grid

Fig. 2. Grid renement study for NREL Phase VI blade at for U 7 m=s.

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M. Ghasemian, A. Nejat / Energy Conversion and Management 99 (2015) 210220

While building mesh, special attention is given to minimize mesh

non-orthogonality and skewness. A good mesh quality is necessary
to obtain accurate results and to reduce the computational time.
Fig. 1 shows the computational domain and boundary layer
mesh near the blade. In order to resolve the boundary layer, a
boundary layer grid was attached to the blade surface. The height

only one blade is considered, and periodic boundary condition is

used. The numerical time step size is set to be 2:5  105 s in order
to ensure an accurate temporal discretization and small Courant
number.
Calculations were run for four revolutions, and data were collected over the three last revolutions. Then the time-dependent
surface pressure uctuations were used as the acoustic source eld
data, and they were converted to the frequency domain using Fast
Fourier Transform (FFT).

of the rst row of cells that bounding the blade is set to be 105 m
which ensures y < 1 for cells immediately adjacent to the blade.
To decrease both cell number of the grid and computation time,

U=7m/s @ r/R=0.30
IDDES
k-w SST [22]
Experiment [14]

-Cp

-Cp

-1

-1

0.2

0.4

x/c

0.6

0.8

-2

U=7m/s @ r/R=0.633

0.2

0.4

x/c

0.6

IDDES
k-w SST [22]
Experiment [14]

0.8

U=7m/s @ r/R=0.80

IDDES
k-w SST [22]
Experiment [14]

-Cp

-1

-1

0.2

0.4

0.6

0.8

-2

0.2

0.4

0.6

x/c

x/c

U=7m/s @ r/R=0.95

IDDES
k-w SST [22]
Experiment [14]

-Cp

-Cp

-2

IDDES
k-w SST [22]
Experiment [14]

-2

U=7m/s @ r/R=0.467

-1

-2

0.2

0.4

0.6

0.8

x/c
Fig. 3. Pressure coefcient distribution of NREL Phase VI blade at wind speed of 7 m/s.

0.8

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M. Ghasemian, A. Nejat / Energy Conversion and Management 99 (2015) 210220

sizes were tested. Fig. 2 shows the torque of the blade for ve different numbers of elements corresponded to U 7 m=s. As Fig. 2
shows, as the number of the grid exceeds about 5 million elements,
there is a negligible variation in the blade torque. So the nal mesh
consists of 5,211,537 cells in two volumes.

4. Grid independency study

It is necessary to perform a grid renement study in every
Computational Fluid Dynamics simulation. In order to conrm
the independence of the results on the grid resolution, several grid

U=10m/s @ r/R=0.30

IDDES
k-w SST [22]
Experiment [14]

-1

-1

0.2

0.4

x/c

0.6

0.8

-2

U=10m/s @ r/R=0.633

0.2

0.4

x/c

0.6

IDDES
k-w SST [22]
Experiment [14]

0.8

U=10m/s @ r/R=0.80

IDDES
k-w SST [22]
Experiment [14]

-Cp

-1

-1
-2

0.2

0.4

x/c

0.6

0.8

-2

0.2

0.4

x/c

0.6

U=10m/s @ r/R=0.95

IDDES
k-w SST [22]
Experiment [14]

-Cp

-Cp

-2

IDDES
k-w SST [22]
Experiment [14]

-Cp

-Cp

U=10m/s @ r/R=0.467

-1

-2

0.2

0.4

x/c

0.6

0.8

Fig. 4. Pressure coefcient distribution of NREL Phase VI blade at wind speed of 10 m/s.

0.8

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M. Ghasemian, A. Nejat / Energy Conversion and Management 99 (2015) 210220

5. Results

Cp

5.1. Aerodynamics results

U=15m/s @ r/R=0.30

U=15m/s @ r/R=0.467

IDDES
k-w SST [22]
Experiment [14]

p  p1


q u21 rx2

where p  p1 is the gage pressure, r is the radius of the blade section, and x is the rotational speed. Figs. 35 depict the surface pressure coefcient distribution on the ve spanwise sections at 30%,
46.7%, 63.3%, 80%, 95% of the blade span for three different inow

In order to validate the simulation, the surface pressure coefcient on the blade was compared with the available experimental
data [14]. The surface pressure coefcient is dened as:

1
2

IDDES
k-w SST [22]
Experiment [14]

-Cp

-Cp

2
1

-1
-1
-2

0.2

0.4

0.6

0.8

-2

0.2

0.4

0.6

x/c

U=15m/s @ r/R=0.633

U=15m/s @ r/R=0.80

IDDES
k-w SST [22]
Experiment [14]

IDDES
k-w SST [22]
Experiment [14]

-Cp

-1

-1

0.2

0.4

0.6

0.8

-2

0.2

0.4

0.6

x/c

x/c

U=15m/s @ r/R=0.95

IDDES
k-w SST [22]
Experiment [14]

5
4
3

-Cp

-Cp

-2

0.8

x/c

2
1
0
-1
-2

0.2

0.4

0.6

0.8

x/c
Fig. 5. Pressure coefcient distribution of NREL Phase VI blade at wind speed of 15 m/s.

0.8

M. Ghasemian, A. Nejat / Energy Conversion and Management 99 (2015) 210220

conditions, U 7; 10; 15 m=s. At 7 m/s inow velocity, the pressure

coefcient at all spanwise sections show good agreement with
experimental data. At 7 m/s wind speed which is categorized as
low wind speed, the ow is mostly attached. At 10 m/s wind speed
which the stall commences to occur, a discrepancy is seen near the
leading edge of the suction side at 46.7% of the blade span. This discrepancy is due to ow separation near the mid-span of the blade.
At 15 m/s, wind speed which is corresponds to stall ow, some
deviations were found near the leading edge of suction side at
30% of the blade span. The value of these discrepancies in the
IDDES turbulence model is less than the RANS turbulence models.
At high wind speeds, where the ow is massively separated over
the entire blade span, RANS models fail to predict the correct separation and the lift and torque is over predicted [22]. These results

217

show the superiority of the IDDES turbulence model in the separation prediction as compared to the conventional RANS models.
Fig. 6 shows the instantaneous pressure contours on the blade
pressure side for three inow conditions. For all conditions, the
contours show considerable variations in the both spanwise and
chordwise directions.
Turbulent vortical structures of the ow eld for two ow conditions U 1 7; 15 m=s are visualized in Fig. 7. To identify these
vortex structures, the Q-criterion isosurface colored with the values of the velocity magnitude is shown.
The Q-criterion which is the second invariant of the velocity
gradient tensor is dened as [23]:


1
Xij Xij  Sij Sij
2

Fig. 6. Instantaneous pressure contour on the NREL Phase VI blade pressure side.

Fig. 7. Isosurface of turbulent vertical structures for Q = 200 s2 contoured by the velocity magnitude for U 1 7 m=s (left) and U 1 15 m=s (right).

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M. Ghasemian, A. Nejat / Energy Conversion and Management 99 (2015) 210220

80

80

IDDES
Tadamasa & Zangeneh [7]

70

U=7 [m/s]
U=10 [m/s]
U=15 [m/s]

f = 2.4 [Hz]
60

Sound Pressure Level [dB]

Sound Pressure Level [dB]

60
50
40
30
20

40

20

10
-20

200

400

600

800

1000
10

Frequency [Hz]

10

10

Frequency [Hz]
Fig. 8. Comparison of Sound Pressure Level the NREL Phase VI wind turbine at
U 1 15 m=s with Tadamasa and Zangeneh [7].

Fig. 10. Wind speed effects on the noise generation of NREL Phase VI wind turbine.

80

2.4 [Hz]

Sound Pressure Level [dB]

60

Sound Pressure Level [dB]

D=14.74 [m]
D=20.87 [m]
D=36.18 [m]
D=69.29 [m]
D=137.02 [m]

80

Thickness & Loading Noise

Total Noise

40

20

60

40

20

-20
-20

10

10

10

10

Frequency [Hz]

Sij





1 @ui @uj
1 @ui @uj

Xij

2 @xj @xi
2 @xj @xi

It can be observed that in U 1 7 ow condition, the ow is

attached and the turbulent vortical structures are only shed from
the blade tip. Whereas, at U 1 15, the ow is massively separated
over the entire blade span.
5.2. Aeroacoustics results
To conrm the accuracy of the aero-acoustic simulation, the
Sound Pressure Level is compared with the available numerical
results of Tadamasa and Zangeneh [7]. Sound Pressure Level is a
logarithmic measure of the effective sound pressure of a sound relative to a reference value and is dened as follows [5]:

LP 10  Log 10

^2
p
^2ref
p

10

10

Frequency [Hz]

Fig. 9. Sound Pressure Level of different mechanism of noise generation from the
NREL Phase VI wind turbine at U 1 15 m=s.

where

Fig. 11. The effect of distance on Sound Pressure Level at U 1 7 m=s.

^ref has the value of 2:105 Pa.

And p
In the present computation, only one blade of the whole wind
turbine of Tadamasa and Zangeneh [7] is simulated. It is assumed
that every blade generates the same acoustic pressure; therefore
the Sound Pressure Level of the whole wind turbine is computed
as follows:

Ltwo

blade

10log 10

^2one blade
p
^2ref
p

10log 10 2 

^2one blade
p

^2ref
p
!!

^2one blade
p
^2ref
p

10 log 10 2 log 10

^2one blade
p
^2ref
p

!!

!!
3:01 Lone

blade

Fig. 8 presents a comparison of the Sound Pressure Level

between the current simulation and the numerical results of
Tadamasa and Zangeneh [7] at U 1 15 m=s inow condition and

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M. Ghasemian, A. Nejat / Energy Conversion and Management 99 (2015) 210220

rotational speed of 72 rpm. The Sound Pressure Level is reported

for a receiver located at the reference distance. This reference distance is according to IEC 61400-11 international standard [11].
It can be observed that there is a good agreement between
IDDES turbulence model and published results [7].
In order to show the low frequency noises in acoustic spectra,
the Sound Pressure Level at U 1 15 m=s inow condition and
rotational speed of 72 rpm is shown in Fig. 9 in logarithm scale.
It can be seen that there is a tonal peak in the sound spectrum at
f 2:4 Hz that matches with the blade rotation frequency.

1 min
revolution
1:2
60 s
second

x 72 rpm ! x 72 rpm 
Number of blades 2

Rotation frequency Number of blades  number of

revolution
second

It is generally known that the Sound Pressure Level at the receiver position is highly depending on the distance between the receiver and the noise source. The further away from the wind turbine,
the lower SPL at the receiver position is observed. The receiver
position effect is shown in Figs. 1113 where the Sound Pressure
Level is computed at different distances from the wind turbine. It
can be seen that the Sound Pressure Level spectrums show significant peaks in the sound intensity at the rotating frequency at each
distance between the receiver and the wind turbine.
Figs. 1113 are related to the noise spectrum for the combination of thickness and loading noise at U 1 7; 10; 15 m=s, respectively. It can be concluded that the noise amplitude is reduced
with increasing the distance between the receiver and the wind
turbine. However, there is no change in the behavior of the spectrum and the location of the tonal peaks.
The effect of distance on the Overall Sound Pressure Level
(OASPL) for three mentioned ow conditions is shown in Fig. 14.

2  1:2 2:4
100

D=14.74 [m]
D=20.87 [m]
D=36.18 [m]
D=69.29 [m]
D=137.02 [m]

80

Sound Pressure Level [dB]

As previously mentioned, sources of aerodynamic noise generated

by the wind turbine consist of the thickness, loading, and quadrupole noise. The combination of thickness and loading noise is
obtained by integrating on the blade surface and the total noise is
calculated by integrating over the interface surface. The difference
between the total noise and the combination of thickness and loading noise indicates the quadrupole noise. Fig. 9 shows the total and
the combination of thickness and loading noise spectrum. These
spectrums indicate that the quadrupole noise has negligible inuence on the tonal noise, but the combination of thickness and loading noise is the dominant noise sources at these frequencies. Fig. 9
shows several peaks in the high frequency region for the total noise
that cannot be seen in the combination of thickness and loading
noise spectrum. It would be concluded that the quadrupole noise
is related to the turbulent structures behind the wind turbine.
Fig. 10 shows the effects of increasing wind speed on the combination of thickness and loading noise. The Sound Pressure Level
(SPL) is reported for a receiver located at the reference distance
to the wind turbine. There is a direct relation between the strength
of radiated noise and the wind speed. It can be concluded that the
noise amplitude is increased with increasing the wind velocity.
However, there is no signicant change in the behavior of the spectrum and the location of the tonal peaks.

60

40

20

-20

10

10

10

Frequency [Hz]
Fig. 13. The effect of distance on Sound Pressure Level at U 1 15 m=s.

70

60

U=7 [m/s]
U=10 [m/s]
U=15 [m/s]

65

D=14.74 [m]
D=20.87 [m]
D=36.18 [m]
D=69.29 [m]
D=137.02 [m]

60
55

OASPL [dB]

Sound Pressure Level (dB)

80

40

50
45
40

20

35
0

30
25

-20

10

10

10

50

100

150

200

Distance [m]

Frequency (Hz)
Fig. 12. The effect of distance on Sound Pressure Level at U 1 10 m=s.

Fig. 14. The overall Sound Pressure Level due to combination of thickness and
loading noise at different distance from the wind turbine for U 1 7; 10; 15 m=s.

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M. Ghasemian, A. Nejat / Energy Conversion and Management 99 (2015) 210220

The OASPL was evaluated by integration over the frequency

spectrum.
It can be seen that the OASPL does not vary linearly with the
receiver distance. This means that doubling the receiver distance
does not lead to the halving of Sound Pressure Level. The OASPL
varies logarithmically with the receiver distance. Furthermore,
Fig. 14 indicates that there is a direct relation between the
OASPL and the wind speed. It can be observed that the OASPL is
6 dB greater at U 1 15 m=s in comparison with U 1 10 m=s
and 8 dB greater at U 1 10 m=s in comparison with U 1 7 m=s
in each distance from the wind turbine.
To indicate the importance of the quadrupole noises in the total
noise, the contribution of every source in the OASPL for three different inow conditions, U 1 7; 10; 15 m=s, is reported in
Table 1. The receiver is located at the reference distance. These
data indicate that the quadrupole noises form a major part of the
total noise.

6. Conclusion
In the present paper, the aerodynamic and aero-acoustic of the
ow eld around the NREL Phase VI wind turbine was studied. The
IDDES turbulence model was conducted to obtain the instantaneous turbulent ow eld. The Ffowcs William and Hawkings
(FW-H) acoustic analogy was applied to predict the Fareld noise.
Simulations were performed for three different inow conditions,
U 7; 10; 15 m=s. The surface pressure coefcient at ve blade sections were veried by experimental data. The good agreement in
the surface pressure shows the advantages of the IDDES turbulence
model for the separation prediction as compared to the conventional RANS models. To illustrate the tip vortex in low velocity condition and massive separation in high velocity circumstance,
turbulent vortical structures around blades were visualized. The
acoustic pressure spectra of the thickness, loading and quadrupole
noise sources were presented and the contributions of each source
were investigated. The results indicate that the quadrupole noise
has negligible inuence on the tonal noise, but the combination
of thickness and loading noise are the dominant noise sources at
those frequencies. The effect of the wind speed and the distance
between the wind turbine and the receivers were studied. The
results showed a direct relation between the strength of the radiated noise and the wind speed. The Sound Pressure Level spectrum
indicated relatively signicant peaks in the sound intensity at frequency of 2.4 Hz for rotational speed of 72 rpm. This tonal peak in
the sound spectra matches with the corresponding blade passing
frequency for this rotational speed. The Overall Sound Pressure
Level (OASPL) at different distances ranging from 20 m to 140 m
were calculated and the results showed it decreases logarithmically with the receiver distance. The OASPL is 6 dB greater at
U 1 15 m=s in comparison with U 1 10 m=s and 8 dB greater
at U 1 10 m=s in comparison with U 1 7 m=s in each distance
from the wind turbine.

Therefore, the results of this paper can improve a better understanding of the noise generation mechanisms as well as the design
of quieter small Horizontal Axis Wind Turbine. Furthermore, these
results can be exploited to determine the efcient location for
wind turbine installation that the noise radiated has the minimum
annoying to the vicinity residents.
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