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Note: If you ever want to learn how to CAD your own wind turbine blade in SolidWorks (NOT the geometry for this tutorial), we recommend you take a look at this very nice guide! Credits to Nathaniel Gilbert, former Cornell MAE M.Eng student.

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Summary of the above video:

1. Import Geometry
   1. Right click on Geometry > Import Geometry
   2. Browse > Select file in directory
2. Open Design Modeler
   1. Double click Geometry in project
   2. To get rid of ghost image, change view setting to wireframe, then back to shaded edges

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Body Transformations

In this video, we show you how to correctly orient the blade given the pitch angle specification and we show you how to translate the blade so that the global axis becomes at center of rotation (center of hub).

It is not necessary to have strong background in wind power technology to follow this tutorial since it's main its main function is to demonstrate how to perform an FSI simulation in ANSYS. However, having a basic understanding of wind turbine blade design and aerodynamics is suggested. It would be a good idea to know why blades are twisted for example. The following video starts with a brief statement on how blades are oriented but it might be difficult to understand if you have never been exposed to this material. I found two good brief introductions on wind turbine blade design and I strongly suggest you spend a few minutes learning the basics of this fascinating topic. 

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Schubel, P., & Crossley, R. (2012). Wind Turbine Blade Design Review.  Wind Engineering,  365-388. (A more thorough introduction if you are interesting interested in learning a bit more about this topic)

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In the following video, we close off all opening then make a solid body to represent the volume of enclosed by the blade, out of the current surface bodies. 

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1. Closing the surfaces
   1. Create Surface from edges at the root to close this opening off
   2. Select this surface and all surfaces under part 5 and click form new part
2. Making a copy of our blade surface bodies to use later for the FEA.
   1. Translate
      1. Change preserve bodies to yes
      2. Select all blade bodies (10)
      3. Select any direction but specify the distance to be zero.
      4. We now have two blades, rename this new blade, Blade FEA. Supress Suppress the root surface from this blade (can hide the CFD Blade first). Hide Blade FEA.
3. Sew
   1. Suppress the spar bodies for Blade CFD (hide the part then show which ones are the spar)
   2. Body operation, Sew and choose only the outside surfaces.
   3. For create solid, click yes. Solid is created. 

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1. Upwind sketch
   1. Select xy coord, new plane, offset z of 90m, generate
   2. New Sketch
   3. Make sure auto constraints cursor is selected
   4. Use arc by center tool
   5. Use line tool
   6. Dimensions angles to 60 degree each
   7. Dimension radius to 120 meters
2. Downwind sketch
   1. Same thing but place it 180 meters behind
   2. twice the radius, so 240 meters
   Skin
   1. Click skin, select both sketches
   2. Specify add material
3. Name this body, fluid, and specify that it’s a fluid

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Creating the Fluid Volume

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Summary of steps in the above video:       

1. Skin
   1. Click skin, select both sketches
   2. Specify add material
2. Name this body, fluid, and specify that it’s a fluid
3. Boolean subtract
   1. Click Boolean, select target body to be the fluid body and tool body to be the blade
4. Show the blade inside with wireframe view

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