Computers & Fluids 38 (2009) 14051410

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Computers & Fluids

j o u r n a l h o m e p a g e : w w w . e l s e v i e r . c o m / l o c a t e / c o m p fl u i d

Effects of blade tip modications on wind turbine performance using vortex model
Jean-Jacques Chattot
University of California Davis, Department of Mechanical and Aeronautical Engineering, One Shields Avenue, Member AIAA, Davis, CA 95616, USA

a r t i c l e

i n f o

Article history:
Received 1 March 2007
Accepted 23 January 2008
Available online 12 April 2008

a b s t r a c t
The effects of blade tip modications on a wind turbine blade are studied with the design code developed
previously, by taking into account the curving of the blade axis in or out of the plane of rotation. This is an
area of interest for manufacturers of wind turbines to improve the aerodynamic performance, as has been
done with airplane wings and also to use the swept tips to unload the blades during wind gusts by changing the local incidences with a nose-down torsional moment.
The vortex model, based on Goldstein approach, treats each blade as a lifting line generating a helicoidal
vortex sheet, supporting the trailed vorticity along prescribed helices whose pitch is determined to satisfy
the wake equilibrium condition. As the lifting line is given sweep in the plane of rotation or dihedral in
the plane containing the blade and the rotor axis, the induced velocities by the bound vortex at the lifting
line are no longer zero and the blade ow is also affected by the modied vortex sheet geometry, according to the BiotSavart formula. The study is performed with a two-bladed rotor with the NREL blade as
point of reference.
A series of tests is carried out with the design code, comparing the design of a rotor blade with straight
axis or with a 10% (forward or backward) sweep, dihedral or winglet. Results indicate that the aerodynamic performance are in general enhanced with these tip modications, although the trends differ
between forward and backward orientations, with some nonlinear effects associated with the wake
geometry.
2008 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction
There is an increased interest in the study of blade tip geometric
modications to improve the aerodynamic performance of turbine
rotors and possibly making them less sensitive to wind gusts by
using their structural response to variable loadings. Such benets
have been demonstrated for xed wings aircrafts with swept wings
and winglets. Note that sweep is added to an aircraft wing primarily
for the transonic cruise at Mach numbers where shock waves are
present, and that backward sweep is chosen in general because it
is the more stable conguration structurally. In contrast, sweep on
a long and exible rotor blade is expected to improve the structural
stability but is not, at present, used to weaken potential shock waves,
a well known source of noise in helicopter rotor aerodynamics.
For low speed ows, the most efcient approach to understanding these tip effects is with the vortex method based on Goldstein
model, an extension of Prandtl Lifting Line theory to rotating lifting
elements [1]. Small changes in the lifting line geometry result in altered induced velocities that can be calculated accurately with
BiotSavart law and contrasted with the baseline geometry, giving
useful information about the favorable or unfavorable trends associated with them. There is a lack of data for non-rectilinear blade

tips, except for experimental research on a specic tip extension,

called Mie-type vane [2], a thin plate fence mounted at the tip of
a blade. Therefore, the results presented here are analytical for
the main part, although the design of blade tips is made with reference to the NREL rotor [3] at V 7 m=s, that produces a power
P 6:0 kW and a thrust on the tower T 1290 N for an efciency
g 0:353. The design code uses the same S809 prole used for the
NREL rotor, both for the blade and for the modied tip.
2. Numerical treatment of modied blade tip
Consider the coordinate system dened in Fig. 1, with the x-axis
as the rotor axis, oriented downstream, the y-axis along one blade,
and the z-axis completing the direct coordinate system. In discrete
form, the induced velocity components at control point k now assume the following form:
jx1
X


uk

j1

vk

0045-7930/$ - see front matter 2008 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.compuid.2008.01.022

jx1
jx1
X
X
1
~
Cj1  Cj bj;k
Cj Cj1 b
j;k
2
j1
j1

jx1
jx1
X
X
1
Cj1  Cj cj;k
Cj Cj1 ~cj;k
2
j1
j1

wk
E-mail address: jjchattot@ucdavis.edu

jx1
X

1
~j;k
Cj1  Cj aj;k
Cj Cj1 a
2
j1

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J.-J. Chattot / Computers & Fluids 38 (2009) 14051410

the dihedral shape xw s; ys. This leads to the following expression for the incidence angle
3
02
1


yj
j dyj  vj dxwj 7
B61 qu
C

wj A  tj
6
aj arctan @4
5=
adv
dy2 dx2
j

wj

where t j is the twist, measured from the z-axis, see Fig. 2.

Finally, the inviscid induced drag and torque contributions now
read
Z 1
h y
i

C Di 2
Cy
7
wy dy  vydzs y
adv
y0
Z 1
Cy1 uyydy  vyydxw y
8
C si 2
y0

where the last terms are the contributions for a non-rectilinear

blade. The viscous corrections, C Dv and C sv , are unchanged. The minimization of the objective function, F C s kC D is carried out for a
given thrust on the tower. The Lagrange multiplier k is calculated in
the procedure, and C s C si C sv , C D C Di C Dv [1].
Fig. 1. Coordinate system and vortex element.

3. Design of blade tip with sweep

where the tilda terms include the inuence of other blade lifting
lines as well as that of the non-rectilinear lifting line on itself, and jx
represents the total number of control points on a blade. Note also
that the v-component is now playing a role in the local incidence
when dihedral or winglet are modeled. Let the lifting line be dened
by xw s, ys and zs s, where s is the curvilinear abscissa along the
lifting line and the subscripts w and s stand for winglet (or dihedral) and sweep respectively.
The BiotSavart law applied to the velocities induced by a
curved lifting line on itself reads

The optimum two-bladed rotor at TSR 5:39, corresponding to

V 7 m=s is rst calculated as base blade for comparison. As result

~j;k 1=4pzsk  zsj dyj  yk  yj dzsj =xwk  xwj 2

a
3

yk  yj 2 zsk  zsj 2 2

where j is the index for a small element of lifting line

dxwj ; dyj ; dzsj , located at xwj ; yj ; zsj and inducing an axial component uk at control point k, located at xwk ; yk ; zsk . Similar formu~ and ~c by cyclic permutation where
lae are obtained for b
j;k
j;k
zsk  zsj ! xwk  xwj , yk  yj ! zsk  zsj , and xwk  xwj !
yk  yj , and similarly dyj ! dzsj , dzsj ! dxwj , and dxwj ! dyj . Note
that the inuence of the other lifting lines has to be added.
The vortex sheet of a blade is generated by rotating and translating the curved lifting line along the x-axis. It is discretized as a
vortex lattice by the vortex laments originating from the lifting
line, at mid-point between the control points and by segmentation of the wake by planes x xi , i 1; . . . ; ix. The wake structure
is carried out up to 20 blade radii downstream [1]. A small element
!
of vorticity Ds i;j dxi ; dyi;j ; dzi;j , along the jth trailing vortex,
located at point xi ; yi;j ; zi;j , Fig. 1, contributes to the inuence
coefcient aj;k as part of the summation
aj;k

Fig. 2. Local incidence in plane normal to dihedral line or winglet.

NREL blade
Base blade
Blade with 10% sweep
Blade with -10% sweep

0.4

ix
X

1=4pzsk  zi;j dyi;j  yk  yi;j dzi;j =xwk  xi 2
i2

0.2

where dxi xi  xi1 , etc. . . and the vortex laments are of the form
xi
xi
/j and zi;j yj sinadv
/j . The other inuence
yi;j yj cosadv
coefcients are also obtained by cyclic permutation, and the inuence of the other vortex sheets must be accounted for.
In the geometric implementation, the sweep is added as a
shearing transformation parallel to the z-axis, which does not affect the incidence aj of the blade element, dened by the angle between the local prole chord and the incoming ow component in
the plane N, parallel to the z-axis and perpendicular to the trace of

chord (s)

yk  yi;j 2 zsk  zi;j 2 2

-0.2
0

0.2

0.4

0.6
s

0.8

Fig. 3. Chord distributions: NREL blade, base blade and blade with 10% sweep.

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J.-J. Chattot / Computers & Fluids 38 (2009) 14051410

of the optimization, the rotor efciency increases to g 0:375 and

the power to P 6:39 kW for the same thrust T 1290 N as measured for the NREL rotor. The chord and twist distributions can be
seen in Figs. 3 and 4, the circulation, axial, radial and azimuthal induced velocities in Figs. 58. Note that viscous corrections, based
on the approach of Ref. [1], have been included in all the results
presented.
Sweep is added to the blade. A backward (10%) and forward
10% sweep effect is shown in Figs. 38. The global results indicate that backward sweep is effective in increasing the power capture to P 6:44 kW (g 0:377), whereas forward sweep leads to
less power than the base blade with P 6:38 kW (g 0:374). From

the structural point of view, the pitching moment about the blade
axis is modied from a root value C m;o 0:211 for the base blade
(negative means nose-down), to C m;o 0:221 and C m;o 0:201
for the backward and forward swept blade, respectively. The tip
contribution is best seen in Fig. 9 with the pitching moment coefcient distribution. The results are also favorable to the backward
sweep solution as a means to twist the blade towards lower incidences for gust control, a situation that is statically stable.

0.4

0.3

30

v(s)

20

twist (s)

v base blade
v blade with 10% sweep
v blade with -10% sweep

0.2

10
0.1
0
0

-10

Base blade
Blade with 10% sweep
Blade with -10% sweep

0.2

0.4

0.6

0.8

s
Fig. 7. Induced radial velocity distributions: base blade and blade with 10% sweep.

-20

0.2

0.4

0.6

0.8

s
Fig. 4. Twist distribution: base blade and blade with 10% sweep.

0.3

base blade
blade with 10% sweep
balde with -10% sweep

0.1

w(s)

-0.05

(s)

w base blade
w blade with 10% sweep
w blade with -10% sweep

0.2

0
-0.1

-0.1

-0.2
-0.15
0

0.2

0.4

0.6

0.8

s
-0.2
0

0.5

Fig. 8. Induced azimuthal velocity distributions: base blade and blade with 10%
sweep.

Fig. 5. Circulation distribution: base blade and blade with 10% sweep.

-0.15

2
u base blade
u blade with 10% sweep
u blade with -10% sweep

Cm,o (s)

u (s)

-0.25

-0.3

-0.35

-1

-0.4
-2

Cm,o base blade

Cm,o blade with 10% sweep
Cm,o blade with -10% sweep

-0.2

0.2

0.4

0.6

0.8

0.2

0.4

0.6

0.8

s
Fig. 6. Induced axial velocity distributions: base blade and blade with 10% sweep.

Fig. 9. Pitching moment coefcient distributions: base blade and blade with 10%
sweep.

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J.-J. Chattot / Computers & Fluids 38 (2009) 14051410

4. Design of blade tip with dihedral

Dihedral is added by bending the lifting line in the plane containing the blade and the axis of rotation. Positive dihedral corresponds to bending in the direction of the undisturbed incoming
ow. The shape considered for such blade tip is dened by the
equation:

n
awt  x
yn 1
9
awt

quarter-ellipse, but as n increases, the shape evolves toward a sharp

turning right angle. This allows for smooth blending into a winglet,
see Fig. 10.
The global results for the power indicate that forward dihedral
is very efcient at increasing power to P 6:51 kW (g 0:381),
whereas backward dihedral will give P 6:45 kW (g 0:378), a
smaller increase, compared to the base blade. The distributions
are found in Figs. 1115. Noteworthy are the important asymme-

where awt represents the dihedral height with reference to the blade
radius, and n 4 in this application. For n 2, this represents a

0.1
u baseblade
u blade with 10% dihedral
u blade with -10% dihedral

0
Base blade dihedral
Blade with 10% dihedral

u (s)

0.4

-0.1

xw (r)

0.2
-0.2
0

-0.2

0.2

0.4

0.6

0.8

s
0

0.2

0.4

0.6

0.8

Fig. 13. Induced axial velocity distributions: base blade and blade with 10%
dihedral.

Fig. 10. Dihedral shapes: base blade and blade with 10% dihedral awt 0:1.

0.2
30

v (s)

20

twist (s)

0.1

Base blade
Blade with 10% dihedral
Blade with -10% dihedral

-0.1

10
-0.2
0

-0.4
-10

v baseblade
v blade with 10% dihedral
v blade with -10% dihedral

-0.3

0.2

0.4

0.6

0.8

s
0

0.2

0.4

0.6

0.8

s
Fig. 11. Twist distributions: base blade and blade with 10% dihedral.

Fig. 14. Induced radial velocity distributions: base blade and blade with 10%
dihedral.

0.6
0

0.2
w (s)

(s)

-0.05

w baseblade
w blade with 10% dihedral
w blade with -10% dihedral

0.4

base blade
blade with 10% dihedral
blade with -10% dihedral

-0.1
-0.2
-0.15

-0.2

-0.4

0
0

0.2

0.4

0.6

0.8

0.2

0.4

0.6

0.8

s
Fig. 12. Circulation distributions: base blade and blade with 10% dihedral.

Fig. 15. Induced azimuthal velocity distributions: base blade and blade with 10%
dihedral.

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J.-J. Chattot / Computers & Fluids 38 (2009) 14051410

tries found in the distributions for C and u that are apparent even
in the root region.
5. Design of blade tip with winglet
A winglet will be dened as a small lifting line element that is
placed at 90 from the main lifting element. A kink exists at the
junction of the blade and the winglet. In the Prandtl Lifting Line
theory for wings, this is the most efcient placement of a lifting
element in order to decrease the induced drag. However, because
of the break in the lifting line, there is a singularity at the kink, with

innite induced velocities [4]. For that reason, we employ two cosine distributions for the mesh system, one for the main lifting element and one for the winglet, which cluster the points in the kink
region. The winglet height is dened by the parameter bwt , see
Fig. 16.
Winglets are efcient in increasing the power capture because
they work essentially as an extension of the blade. The 10% forward
winglets increase the power by 3.5% to P 6:62 kW (g 0:388),
whereas the backward winglets increase it to P 6:58 kW

0.8
u base blade
u blade with 10% winglet
u blade with -10% winglet

0.6
0.5
0.4
Base blade
Blade with 10% winglet

0.4

0.2

u (s)

0.3

xw (s)

0.2
-0.2
0.1
-0.4
0
-0.6
-0.1
-0.8
-0.2

0.2

0.4

0.6

0.8

s
0

0.2

0.4

0.6

0.8

Fig. 19. Induced axial velocity distributions: base blade and blade with 10%
winglet.

Fig. 16. Winglet geometry: base blade and blade with 10% winglet bwt 0:1.

0.8
0.6

25

0.4
20
v (s)

0.2

twist (s)

15

10

-0.2

-0.4
-0.6

0
Base blade
Blade with 10% winglet
Blade with -10% winglet

-5
-10

v base blade
v blade with 10% winglet
v blade with -10% winglet

0.2

0.4

0.6

-0.8

0.2

0.4

0.6

0.8

s
0.8

Fig. 20. Induced radial velocity distributions: base blade and blade with 10%
winglet.

Fig. 17. Twist distributions: base blade and blade with 10% winglet.

0.8
0

0.4

w (s)

(s)

-0.05

w base blade
w blade with 10% winglet
w blade with -10% winglet

0.6

base blade
blade with 10% winglet
blade with -10% winglet

-0.1

0.2
0
-0.2

-0.15

-0.2

-0.4
0
0

0.2

0.4

0.6

0.8

0.2

0.4

0.6

0.8

s
Fig. 18. Circulation distributions: base blade and blade with 10% winglet.

Fig. 21. Induced azimuthal velocity distributions: base blade and blade with 10%
winglet.

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J.-J. Chattot / Computers & Fluids 38 (2009) 14051410

(g 0:385). The distributions are shown in Figs. 1721. The kink

singularity is visible on all plots. Note that the circulation in the
winglet is signicant and that the main part of the blade is more
loaded near the kink, which is similar to what occurs with wing/
winglet congurations thereby increasing the bending moment.
6. Conclusion
Different blade tip modications, sweep, dihedral and winglet,
have been considered and analyzed independently with an optimization code, based on the Goldstein vortex model. The results indicate that, from the aerodynamic point of view, the power capture
can be enhanced with these more complex geometries. It remains
to be seen, however, if the structural penalties associated with
these modications are not prohibitive. The design of the structure
will have to accommodate for higher static twisting and bending
moments. Further study is also needed to understand better these
effects, and in particular, the nonlinear behavior of the efciency
coefcient with respect to the 10% bending, which gives a strong
favorable bias to backward sweep and forward dihedral and wing-

let. This is in contrast to more symmetrical effects on wings, which

is likely due to the different wake/blade relative position for the
helix which has a large inuence on the induced velocities. The
backward sweep will move the wake further away from the blade,
in particular the strong tip vortex. Another important aspect is to
understand the dynamics of the blade, as the off-axis blade tip will
couple bending and torsion, which could potentially trigger aeroelastic phenomena, increase the blade fatigue or both.
References
[1] Chattot J-J. Optimization of wind turbines using helicoidal vortex model. J Solar
Energy Eng 2003;125(4):41824. Nov. 2003.
[2] Shimizu Y, Ismaili E, Kamada Y, Maeda T. Rotor conguration effects on the
performance of a HAWT with tip-mounted Mie-type vanes. J Solar Energy Eng
2003;125(4):4417. Nov. 2003.
[3] Hand MM, Simms DA, Fingersh LJ, Jager DW, Cotrell JR, Schreck SJ, et al.
Unsteady aerodynamics experiment phase VI: wind tunnel test congurations
and available data campaigns, NREL/TP-500-29955. Golden CO: National
Renewable Laboratory; 2001.
[4] Chattot J-J. Low speed design and analysis of wing/winglet combinations
including viscous effects. J Aircraft 2006;43(2):3869.