Aerodynamics of the Darrieus wind turbine is an extremely complex issue requiring the use of very advanced numerical methods. Additional structural components of this device, such as, for example, a rotating shaft disturb the flow through the rotor significantly impairing its aerodynamic characteristics. The main purpose of the presented research is to validate the commonly-used unsteady Reynolds averaged Navier–Stokes (URANS) approach with the shear stress transport (SST) k-ω turbulence model based on the particle image velocimetry (PIV) studies of a two-bladed rotor operating at the moderate tip speed ratio of 4.5. In the present numerical studies, a two-dimensional turbine rotor with a diameter of 1 meter was considered. The following parameters were evaluated: instantaneous velocity fields; velocity profiles in the rotor shadow and aerodynamic blade loads. The obtained numerical results are comparable with the reference experimental results taken from the literature. The second purpose of this work was to examine the influence of the rotating rotor shaft/tower on the wind turbine performance. It has been proven that the cylindrical shaft reduces the power of the device by 2.5% in comparison with the non-shaft configuration.

In this paper, Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) analysis of a two-dimensional two-bucket Savonius rotor, using ANSYS Fluent solver, is presented. Computational methods of fluid dynamics are used to estimate the aerodynamic forces acting on the rotor, the torque and the power extracted by the Savonius rotor. In addition, an analysis of the results for different turbulence models is performed. Numerical investigations are compared with the experiment of the Sandia National Laboratories.

In spite of the attractiveness of CFD methods and advanced measurement methods, there is still no full analysis of aerodynamic blade loads for vertical axis Darrieus-type wind turbines. Due to an inherently unsteady flow around the rotor blades, blade-wake-blade interaction and the occurrence of dynamic stall, the aerodynamics of this type of wind turbine is very complex. A two-bladed rotor have been investigated numerically for the tip speed ratio of 5.0. This paper compares results for aerodynamic blade loads obtained applying such turbulence models as: the standard k-ε; the RNG k-ε; the Realizable k-ε and the SST k-ω. As a result, quantitative instantaneous blade forces as well as instantaneous wake profiles behind the rotor have been obtained. Aerodynamic wake behind the rotor is also visualized by using streak lines. All CFD results are compared with experimental data taken from literature. Good agreement between the numerical results and the experiment is shown for the aerodynamic blade loads as well as for aerodynamic wake behind the rotor.

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A symmetrical NACA 0018 airfoil is often used in such applications as small-to-medium scale vertical-axis wind turbines and aerial vehicles. A review of the literature indicates a large gap in experimental studies of this airfoil at low and moderate Reynolds numbers in the previous century. This gap has limited the potential development of classical turbulence models, which in this range of Reynolds numbers predict the lift coefficients with insufficiently accurate results in comparison to contemporary experimental studies. Therefore, this paper validates the aerodynamic performance of the NACA 0018 airfoil and the characteristics of the laminar separation bubble formed on its suction side using the standard uncalibrated four-equation Transition SST turbulence model and the unsteady Reynolds-averaged Navier-Stokes (URANS) equations. A numerical study was conducted for the chord Reynolds number of 160,000, angles of attack between 0 and 11 degrees, as well as for the free-stream turbulence intensity of 0.05%. The calculated lift and drag coefficients, aerodynamic derivatives, as well as the location and length of the laminar bubble quite well agree with the results of experimental measurements taken from the literature for validation. A sensitivity study of the numerical model was performed in this paper to examine the effects of the time-step size, geometrical parameters and mesh distribution around the airfoil on the simulation results. The airfoil data sets obtained in this work using the Transition SST and the k-ω SST turbulence models were used in the improved double multiple streamtube (IDMS) to calculate aerodynamic blade loads of a vertical-axis wind turbine. The characteristics of the normal component of the aerodynamic blade load obtained by the Transition SST approach are much better suited to the experimental data compared to the k-ω SST turbulence model.

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The purpose of this paper is to estimate the H-Darrieus wind turbine aerodynamic performance, aerodynamic blade loads, and velocity profiles downstream behind the rotor. The wind turbine model is based on the rotor designed by McDonnell Aircraft Company. The model proposed here consists of three fixed straight blades; in the future, this model is planned to be developed with controlled blades. The study was conducted using the unsteady Reynolds averaged Navier–Stokes (URANS) approach with the k-ω shear stress transport (SST) turbulence model. The numerical two-dimensional model was verified using two other independent aerodynamic approaches: a vortex model and the extended version of the computational fluid dynamics (CFD) code FLOWer. All utilized numerical codes gave similar result of the instantaneous aerodynamic blade loads. In addition, steady-state calculations for the applied airfoils were also made using the same numerical model as for the vertical axis wind turbine (VAWT) to obtain lift and drag coefficients. The obtained values of lift and drag force coefficients, for a Reynolds number of 2.9 million, agree with the predictions of the experiment and XFOIL over a wide range of angle of attack. A maximum rotor power coefficient of 0.5 is obtained, which makes this impeller attractive from the point of view of further research. Research has shown that, if this rotor were to work with fixed blades, it is recommended to use the NACA 1418 airfoil instead of the original NACA 0018.