ABSTRACTThe dynamic stall phenomenon and its importance for load calculations and aeroelastic simulations is well known. Different models exist to model the effect of dynamic stall; however, a systematic comparison is still lacking. To investigate if one is performing better than another, three models are used to simulate the Ohio State University measurements and a set of data from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration Ames experimental study of dynamic stall and compare results. These measurements were at conditions and for aerofoils that are typical for wind turbines, and the results are publicly available. The three selected dynamic stall models are the ONERA model, the Beddoes–Leishman model and the Snel model. The simulations show that there are still significant differences between measurements and models and that none of the models is significantly better in all cases than the other models. Especially in the deep stall regime, the accuracy of each of the dynamic stall models is limited. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.