ASME Early Career Technical Journal

2012 ASME Early Career Technical Conference, ASME ECTC

November 2 3, Atlanta, Georgia USA

THE EFFECT OF VARIOUS GURNEY FLAP SHAPES ON THE PERFORMANCE OF

WIND TURBINE AIRFOILS

ABSTRACT
This paper gives an overview on two-dimensional
numerical investigation and comparison of aerodynamic
characteristics of small flaps used to increase lift on wind
turbine airfoils. The small flaps consist of Gurney flaps, trailing
edge wedges and a devised trailing edge curved shape. The
investigations were performed for a diversity of lengths and
heights of these flaps on the TU Delft DU 91-W2-250 airfoil.
Extensive numerical simulations has been done using RANS
model using SST-Transitional turbulence model using a
commercial CFD code, a CFD finite-volume based software, at
the Reynolds number of 2 106. The results confirmed
advantages of using the trailing edge curved shape over the
Gurney flap, which will be more efficient as the flap height is
increased.
INTRODUCTION
The Gurney flap is a small flap utilized to increase the lift
coefficient of an airfoil. The application of increased lift
coefficient is that for a given airfoil the chord, C, could be
reduced to a comparable amount so that the generated lift still
equals that of the original airfoil [1]. During the last decade due
to the increase of the oil price, the size of the new generation
wind turbines with a higher power production capacity
increased rapidly, and designing such kinds of the wind
turbines becomes a real challenge for designers, because they
should be lightweight, and have low production costs, while
maintaining aerodynamic performance. The benefits of this
reduced chord length are that the weight and the material
expenses for building the blades will be reduced.
The gurney flap was developed and applied to race cars by
Robert Liebeck and Dan Gurney in 1960s [2]. The concept
involves of a small tab located at the trailing edge of an airfoil.
The tab was deployed to a height on the order of the boundary
layer thickness (1-2% of chord length) [3, 5]. It was observed
that increasing flap size over 2% of chord length noticeably
increased the drag even though there was continuing increase in

ASME 2012 Early Career Technical Journal - Vol. 11

Mehdi Doosttalab
R&D Engineer, Nordex Energy GmbH
Hamburg, Germany

lift. The aerodynamic force alteration is consequence of a small

region of separated flow directly upstream of the flap with two
counter-rotating vortices downstream of the flap effectively
modifying the trailing edge Kutta condition [4]. Although using
Gurney flap increases the lift coefficient, in return, it also
reduces lift-to-drag (L/D) ratio which will increase drag force
that the wind turbine base has to withstand. There is also a
device called trailing edge wedge that is a wedge located at the
trailing edge of the airfoil [3]. It also increases the lift
coefficient not as much as the Gurney flap but the L/D ratio is
better than of a Gurney flap. In this study the characteristics of
a new optimized curved shape located at the trailing edge were
investigated, giving a divergent trailing edge as a control
device, the focus of current study is to compare lift coefficient
and L/D ratio of this new device to Gurney flap and Trailing
edge wedge.
In this paper the steady-state numerical computations using
transitional RANS model for a diversity of trailing edge wedges
and corresponding trailing edge curved shape as well as angle
of attacks at the Reynolds number of 2 106 on the DU 91W2-250 [6,7] airfoil were studied. The shape of the airfoil is
depicted in Figure 1. Traditional RANS turbulence models

0.2

Y/C

Mohammad Mohammadi, Ali Doosttalab

Undergraduate, K.N.Toosi Univ. of Technology
Tehran, Iran

-0.2

0.2

0.4

X/C

0.6

0.8

1.2

Figure 1. The DU 91-W2-250 airfoil

usually assume that the flow is entirely in a turbulent state.
However, the laminar to turbulent transition may occur on the

244

surface of the airfoil. That is to say, considering the transition

can enhance the accuracy of numerical simulations under
certain circumstances.
0.01
0.005

Y/C

NUMERICAL METHODS AND GRID

To simulate the flow field, a commercial finite volume
CFD code was used as a flow solver. The two-dimensional
incompressible RANS (Reynolds-Averaged Navier-Stokes)

-0.005
H

-0.01
-0.015
-0.02
0.975

0.98

0.985

0.99

X/C

0.995

1.005

Figure 3. DU 91-W2-250 airfoil with 1% of cord length

Gurney flap

0.01

turbulence model, which was used in this investigation, is the

four equations SST-Transitional RANS model to simulate the
transition of the flow over airfoil. The discretization scheme for
all equations was the second-order upwind scheme. Moreover,
a commercial grid generator was used to create highly accurate
structured mesh around the airfoils. In this paper O-type mesh
was used and the domain of O-type mesh had a radius of 40
chord lengths to avoid boundary reflections; furthermore, far
field flow boundary condition was applied to the border of the
domain. The length of the numerical airfoil was 1m. Grid
contains about 100,000 cells with around 400 grid points on
airfoil surface. The height of the first row of cells around the
airfoil is set to around 0.00005 of cord length to ensure
acceptable value of Y + for utilized SST-Transitional model so
that the boundary layer flow can be appropriately resolved. In
Figure 2 the grids around airfoil can be seen.

0.005

GEOMETRY
For Gurney flaps, a series of Gurney flaps of 1% and 2%
of cord length with thickness of 0.33% of cord length were
used at the trailing edge perpendicular to the chord line on the
DU 91-W2-250 airfoil with geometric parameter as shown in
Figure 3. Figure 4 shows the geometric parameters for the
trailing edge wedge and the curved shape attached to the
trailing edge. H and L are height and length of the trailing edge
wedge respectively. In this study different L/H ratios (L/H

ASME 2012 Early Career Technical Journal - Vol. 11

Y/C

Figure 2. Grid distribution around the airfoil

0
0.465

Curve

-0.005

0.605
0.535

Wedge

-0.01

0.395

-0.015

-0.02
0.975

0.98

0.985

0.99

X/C

0.995

1.005

Figure 4. DU 91-W2-250 airfoil with trailing edge

wedge and curve geometric parameters
ratio=length of L/length of H) at two different values of 1% and
2% of cord length for H were considered. Furthermore, L/H =
1.5, 2.1 and 3 were used, as depicted in Figure 5 to compare
performance of the curved shape to that of Gurney flap and the
trailing edge wedge. For all of the curved shape devices, a
curve was obtained from trial and error for the best
performance of this device. The curve can be expressed by
Figure 4. As it can be seen, first, the longest edge of the wedge

245

is split by the ratio of 0.395/0.605 to obtain a new point on that

edge, and then from that point the line perpendicular to the
airfoil chord is drawn to the airfoil surface to create a new line
connecting the airfoil to the wedge longest edge. Then this new
line is split by the ratio of 0.465/0.535 to create a new point and
the created point is the shoulder point of the curve.

1.8
1.6
1.4

CL

1.2
1
0.8

0.01

1%C Gurney flap

2%C Gurney flap
DU 91-W2-250 airfoil

0.6

Y/C

0.005

0.4
0

-0.005

Angle of attack

10

Figure 7. Lift coefficient for DU 91-W2-250 airfoil with

Gurney flap

-0.01

L/H=3
L/H=2.1

L/H=1.5

-0.015
0.97

0.975

0.98

0.985

0.99

X/C

0.995

100
95
90

Figure 5. DU 91-W2-250 airfoil with a diversity of

trailing edge curved shapes

85

Lift/Drag

80
75
70
65

1.4

60

1%C Gurney flap

2%C Gurney flap
DU 91-W2-250 airfoil

55

1.2

50

CL

45

0.8

0.4

0.2

Angle of attack

Angle of attack

10

Figure 8. Lift/Drag ratio for DU 91-W2-250 airfoil with

Gurney flap

Experimental
Numerical

0.6

10

Figure 6. Experimental and numerical lift coefficient

comparision for DU 91-W2-250 airfoil

ASME 2012 Early Career Technical Journal - Vol. 11

RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

For numerical validation as depicted in Figure 6 the
computed lift coefficients (CL) of the DU 91-W2-250 airfoil at
0 to 10 degrees of angle of attack at Reynolds number of
2 106 were compared to the experimental data performed at
the Delft University wind tunnel (LST) [3]. As it can be seen,
the numerical results agree well with the experimental data at
the mentioned angles of attack range.

246

1.8
1.6

1.4

1.4

1.2

1.2

CL

CL

1.6

0.8

DU 91-W2-250 airfoil
L/H=1.5
L/H=2.1
L/H=3

0.6

Angle of attack

0.6

10

Figure 9. Lift coefficient for DU 91-W2-250 airfoil with

a diversity of trailing edge wedges for H=1%

DU 91-W2-250 airfoil
L/H=1.5
L/H=2.1
L/H=3

0.8

90

80

80

Lift/Drag

90

Lift/Drag

100

DU 91-W2-250 airfoil
L/H=1.5
L/H=2.1
L/H=3

60

Angle of attack

10

Figure 11. Lift coefficient for DU 91-W2-250 airfoil

with a diversity of trailing edge curves H=1%

100

70

70
DU 91-W2-250 airfoil
L/H=1.5
L/H=2.1
L/H=3

60

50

50
0

Angle of attack

10

Angle of attack

10

Figure 10. Lift/Drag ratio for DU 91-W2-250 airfoil with

a diversity of trailing edge wedges for H=1%

Figure 12. Lift/Drag ratio for DU 91-W2-250 airfoil with

a diversity of trailing edge curves H=1%

The effects of two Gurney flaps with heights of 1% and 2%

of cord length were compared for the DU 91-W2-250 airfoil in
Figure 7 and Figure 8. As it can be seen, the 1% and 2% of cord
length Gurney flaps have increased lift coefficient 0.275 and
0.386 respectively; however, the maximum lift to drag ratio
decreased from 99 to 90 and 77.
The effects of a diversity of trailing edge wedges on the
airfoil for L/H = 1.5, 2.1 and 3 were compared for H=1% of
chord length in Figure 9 and Figure 10. The computed results
showed that with increasing upstream length (L) the lift

coefficient decreased while the maximum lift-to-drag ratio

(L/D) increased and compared to the Gurney flaps of same
height there was a tradeoff, a decrease in lift coefficient for an
increase in L/D ratio. As for the new trailing edge curved flaps,
the aerodynamic performances of different amounts of L/H =
1.5, 2.1 and 3 for H=1% of chord length were compared and the
same results were obtained for it, as shown in Figure 11 and
Figure 12. The effect of H= 1% and 2% of cord length for
Trailing edge curved flap at L/H = 2.1 on the airfoil were
compared as illustrated in Figure 13 and Figure 14.

ASME 2012 Early Career Technical Journal - Vol. 11

247

95

2
1.8

90

H=1%C
H=2%C

85

Lift/Drag

1.6

CL

1.4
1.2

80
75
70

1
H=1%C
H=2%C

65
0.8

60
0

Angle of attack

10

Figure 13. Lift coefficient for DU 91-W2-250 airfoil

with trailing edge curved flap at L/H = 2.1
As can be seen, going from H=1% to H=2% of cord length,
the lift coefficient increased about 0.12, though, the maximum
lift over drag ratio has decreased from 92 to 81.
And at last, the results between the Gurney flap, trailing
edge wedge and the new trailing edge curved flap at H=1% of
cord length and L/H =2.1 were compared, as depicted in Figure
15 and Figure 16. Clearly, the trailing edge curved flap
compared to the Gurney flap, lift coefficient reduced about 0.02
(1.5 %) while the maximum lift over drag ratio increased from
90.2 to 92.1 (2.1%) compared to the trailing edge wedge that
reduced lift coefficient about 0.06 (4.5%) while the maximum
lift over drag ratio increased from 90.2 to 93.6 (3.7%). The
simulated data showed that in H=2% of cord length and L/H =
2.1 the lift coefficient decreased about 1% while maximum lift
over drag ratio increased about 5.4% in the curved flap
compared to the Gurney flap.
The streamlines over the DU 91-W2-250 airfoil with
trailing edge curved flap at 7 degree angle of attack is depicted
in Figure 17. Figure 18 shows the streamline over the trailing
edge curved flap at H=1% of cord length and L/H =2.1 for DU
91-W2-250 airfoil at 6 degree angle of attack. As presented
here, there is no separation bubble upstream of the flap unlike
the Gurney flap that has a separation bubble upstream of it.
Furthermore, there is no change to two counter-rotating vortices
downstream of the flap. It is clearly visible in Figure 18 that the
flap curve filled the area otherwise filled by separation bubble
upstream of the Gurney flap. Streamlines over Gurney flap and
trailing edge wedge are also depicted in Figure 19 and Figure
20 respectively. As there is no separation bubble upstream of

ASME 2012 Early Career Technical Journal - Vol. 11

Angle of attack

10

Figure 14. Lift/Drag ratio for DU 91-W2-250 airfoil

with trailing edge curved flap at L/H = 2.1

1.8

1.6

1.4

CL

0.6

1.2

1
Gurney flap 1%C
Trailing edge curved shape
Trailing edge wedge

0.8

0.6
0

Angle of attack

10

Figure 15. Lift coefficient for DU 91-W2-250 airfoil

for H=1%C and L/H=2.1
the trailing edge curved flap and trailing edge wedge, the drag
force is lower, thus, lift/drag ratio is increased.

248

95

0.02

90

0.01

85

-0.01

75

Y/C

Lift/Drag

0
80

-0.02

70
Gurney flap 1%C
Trailing edge curved shape
Trailing edge wedge

65

-0.03

60

-0.04
0

Angle of attack

10

Figure 16. Lift/Drag ratio for DU 91-W2-250 airfoil for

H=1%c and L/H=2.1

0.97

0.98

0.99

X/C

1.01

1.02

1.03

Figure 18. Streamlines around the trailing edge curved

flap

0.03

0.6

0.02

0.4

0.01
0
-0.01

Y/C

0.2
0

-0.02

-0.2

-0.03

-0.4

-0.04
-0.05

-0.6
0

0.5

X/C

-0.06
0.95 0.96 0.97 0.98 0.99

1.01 1.02 1.03 1.04 1.05

Figure 17. Streamlines around the airfoil with trailing

edge curved flap

Figure 19. Streamlines around the Gurney flap

CONCLUSION
In the present study the steady CFD simulations are
performed on DU 91-W2-250 airfoil with the Gurney flap,
trailing edge wedge and the innovative trailing edge curved flap
with a variety of length over height ratio of L/H = 1.5, 2.1 and 3
and heights of H= 1% and 2% of cord length at Reynolds
number of 2 106. Results for the different length over height
ratios suggested that with increasing L/H ratio the lift

coefficient decreased, while maximum L/D ratio increased, but

these changes are under 2% when comparing L/H of 1.5 and 3.
Finally, results showed that the innovative trailing edge curved
flap has the benefits of the Gurney flaps and trailing edge
wedges simultaneously, which means, having a lift coefficient
relatively closer to the Gurney flap while retaining a maximum
lift over drag ratio close to the trailing edge wedge. Note that
all of the numerical simulation in this investigation was

ASME 2012 Early Career Technical Journal - Vol. 11

249

blade, where the flow is two-dimensional. However, further

investigations with rotating flow field for thick airfoils at the
inboard section of the blade where the flow is three
dimensional is recommended.

0.02

Y/C

-0.02

-0.04

0.96

0.98

X/C

1.02

1.04

Figure 20. Streamlines around the trailing edge

wedge

performed in two-dimensional domain, which is valid for thin

airfoils that are located at the outboard of the wind turbine

ASME 2012 Early Career Technical Journal - Vol. 11

REFERENCES
[1] Scott J. Johnson, C.P. Case van Dam and Dale E. Berg;
Active Load Control Techniques for Wind Turbines; Sandia
National Laboratories; pages 33-38.
[2] Liebeck, R. H.; Design of Subsonic Airfoils for High Lift;
Journal of Aircraft; Vol. 15, No.9; pages 547-561; 1978.
[3] W.A. Timmer and R.P.J.O.M. van Rooij; Numerical
investigation of an airfoil with a Gurney flap; AIAA-20030352; 2003.
[4] Hak-Tae Lee, Ilan M. Kroo; Computational Investigation of
Airfoils with Miniature Trailing Edge Control Surfaces; AIAA2004-1051; 2004.
[5] Cory S. Jang, James C. Ross, Russell M. Cummings;
Numerical investigation of an airfoil with a Gurney flap;
Aircraft Design; Volume 1, Issue 2, June 1; pages 75-88; 1998.
[6] W.A. Timmer and R.P.J.O.M. van Rooij; Summary of the
Delft University Wind Turbine Dedicated Airfoils; J. Sol.
Energy Eng.125; pages 488-497; 2003.
[7] Airfoil coordinates was provided by Delft University upon
request.

250