Reduction of Wind Turbine Noise Using Optimized Airfoils and Trailing-Edge Serrations

Acoustic field measurements were carried out on a 94-m-diam three-bladed wind turbine with one standard blade, one blade with trailing-edge serrations, and one blade with an optimized airfoil shape. A large horizontal microphone array, positioned at a distance of about one rotor diameter from the turbine, was used to locate and quantify the noise sources in the rotor plane and on the individual blades. The acoustic source maps show that for an observer at the array position, the dominant source for the baseline blade is trailing-edge noise from the blade outboard region. Because of convective amplification and directivity, practically all of this noise is produced during the downward movement of the blade, which causes the typical swishing noise during the passage of the blades. Both modified blades show a significant trailing-edge noise reduction at low frequencies, which is more prominent for the serrated blade. However, the modified blades also show tip noise at high frequencies, which is mainly radiated during the upward part of the revolution and is most important at low wind speeds due to high tip loading. Nevertheless, average overall noise reductions of 0.5 and 3.2 dB are obtained for the optimized blade and the serrated blade, respectively.