Blade aerodynamical station sensor

A blade is divided into a number of Blade aerodynamical station, where aerodynamic properties are evaluated. The number of blade aerodynamical stations and their locations is defined in the Blade shape file.
 

The Blade aerodynamical station sensor enables to track how the different output at the  Blade aerodynamical station evolve in time. It can be opened by right-clicking on a blade aerodynamical station and toggling the sensor on, as shown in the following picture:



The outputs of the Blade aerodynamical station sensor are the same as the Blade [Span] sensor, but their evolution in time is given, rather than accross the blade.



The  Blade aerodynamical station sensor has the following fields, computed with the BEM algorithm:

Field Unit Description
Angle of attack deg The angle bewteen the relative wind and the chordline
Cd - Drag coefficient
Cl - Lift coefficient
Cm - Moment coefficient
Cl/Cd - Ratio of lift over drag coefficients
Local wind speed m.s-1 Wind speed at the station in the horizontal plane. Note that this is only the magnitude of the wind at the blade aerodynamical stations: it does not include the effects of tilt, yaw, cone angles or the deflections of the blade
Relative wind speed m.s-1 Magnitude of the sum of the wind velocity, rotational velocity and any structural velocity at the blade station, relative to the airfoil
Reynolds number - Reynolds number at the station, calculated with the chordlength, the relative velocity and the kinematic viscosity as defined in the  Environment part
Mach number - Mach number at the station, calculated as the ratio between the Relative velocity and the speed of sounds (taken as 343 m.s -1)
Axial induction factor - as calculated with the BEM method
Tangential induction factor - as calculated with the BEM method
Induced velocity m.s-1 Induced velocity in the direction of the incoming wind, as computed by the BEM solver (axial induction)
Tangential induced velocity m.s-1 Induced velocity in the rotational direction of the blade aerodynamic station, as computed by the BEM solver (tangential induction)
Lift force, distr. N.m-1 Aerodynamic force in the direction perpendicular to the incoming wind (lift), per unit length
Drag force, distr. N.m-1 Aerodynamic force in the direction of the incoming wind (drag), per unit length
Pitching moment, distr. Nm.m-1 Aerodynamic moment around the pitch axis, per unit length
Thrust force, distr. N.m-1 Aerodynamic force in the wind direction, per unit length of blade element
Thrust force normalized, distr. - Distributed thrust force divided by ρ⋅U2⋅chord, giving a non-dimensional distributed thrust coefficient
Torque force, distr. N.m-1 Aerodynamic force in the direction of rotation of the blade, per unit length
Torque force normalized, distr. - Distributed torque force divided by ρ⋅U2⋅chord, giving a non-dimensional distributed torque coefficient
Steady BEM iterations - Number of iterations performed by the steady BEM solver at this blade station
Deflection (out of plane) m Out-of-plane deflection of the blade at this station
Deflection (in-plane) m In-plane isplacement of the blade aerodynamical station.
Moment (magnitude) Nm Magnitude of the bending moment