Abstract: In order to obtain wind turbine airfoils with high lift-to-drag ratio and low noise level, the aerodynamic noise is introduced into the wind turbine airfoil design process. To evaluate the airfoil aerodynamic noise level, the airfoil self-noise model is studied and the NASA self-noise model based on extensive experiments is applied to modeling the airfoil aerodynamic noise. With the airfoil profile described by using shape function perturbation method, taking the aerodynamic performance as a constraint, a noise optimization method is set up with the objective to satisfy the lowest self-noise level. In the design process, XFOIL is used to get the boundary layer parameters and evaluate the airfoil aerodynamic performance. By combining the flow field solver and the direct optimization method, and using the complex method to carry out the search iterations, a Matlab based optimization program is developed. By taking NACA 4415 as the original airfoil and applying the developed program, an airfoil with high aerodynamic performance and low noise level is obtained.

Key words: Aerodynamic performance, Airfoil, Noise level, Optimum design