Preliminary Assessment of Noise Pollution Prevention in Wind Turbines Based on an Exergy Approach

Most existing methods for energy transformation and use are inadvertently contaminating our water supplies, releasing greenhouse gasses into the atmosphere, emitting compounds that diminish the earth's protective blanket of ozone, and depleting the earth’s crust of natural resources. As a result, scientists and engineers are increasingly pursuing sustainable technologies so that costs associated with global warming can be minimized and adverse impact on living organisms can be prevented. A promising sustainable method is to harness energy from the wind via wind turbines. However, the noise generated by wind turbines proves to be one of the most significant hindrances to the extensive use of wind turbines. In this study, noise generation produced by flow over objects is investigated to characterize the noise generated due to flow-structure interaction and aeroacoustics. As a benchmark, flow over a cylinder has been chosen for this study, with the aim of correlating three main characteristics in noise generation. Hence, the generated sound pressure level, exergy destroyed and the normal flow velocity (∪∞) are employed to characterize the system in order to relate the exergy destruction to the noise generated in the flow. The correlation has the potential to be used in wind turbine designs to minimize noise pollution due to aerodynamic noise.