Unsteady aerodynamics simulation of a full-scale horizontal axis wind turbine using CFD methodology

Cai, Xin; Gu, Rentao; Pan, Pan; Zhu, Jie

doi:10.1016/j.enconman.2015.12.084

Cited by 94 publications

(42 citation statements)

References 26 publications

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“…Wind energy is considered one of the most promising energy resources because of its cleanliness (no air pollution) and easy access. As a typical devices that converts wind energy into electricity, wind turbines have attracted a lot of interest in recent years [1]. Wind turbines can be classified into two main types according to their axis of rotation: horizontal axis wind turbines (HAWT) and vertical axis wind turbines (VAWT).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Experimental and numerical analysis of a novel Darrieus rotor with variable pitch mechanism at low TSR

Zouzou

Dobrev

Massouh

et al. 2019

Energy

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a b s t r a c tThe Darrieus vertical axis wind-turbine (VAWT) has been the subject of numerous recent studies aimed at improving its aerodynamic performance in order to locate it in urban areas. This article is devoted to the study of an original VAWT with variable-pitch and low tip speed ratio TSR which is favorable to noise reduction and can operate at low velocity wind. The aerodynamic performance of this turbine is studied experimentally in wind tunnel as well as by CFD. In order to obtain the 3D-flow field around the wind turbine rotor, the numerical simulations are performed by means of detached eddy simulation method (DES). The simulation of pitch variation is made possible by using sliding-mesh method. Thus a specially created program adapts the pitch depending on the blade azimuthal position during rotation. The obtained results show that adapted pitch blades are preferable because they permit to obtain a power coefficient Cp that rivals other VAWT in the case of TSR < 1. The maximum torque fluctuation during rotation is lower in the case of adapted variable-pitch compared to fixed-pitch and thus the maximum aerodynamic loads on the structure can be reduced. Moreover, the pitch adaptation leads to lower interaction effects between the upstream-blade wake and down-stream blades.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Experimental and numerical analysis of a novel Darrieus rotor with variable pitch mechanism at low TSR

Zouzou

Dobrev

Massouh

et al. 2019

Energy

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“…The attention of the effect of the tower shadow on the performance of the large wind turbine was paid in the previous studies [18][19][20]. Besides, lots of previous studies on large scale VAWTs, the ratio of the shaft diameter to turbine diameter is very small, so that the effect of the shaft can be negligible.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Numerical Investigations of the Effects of the Rotating Shaft and Optimization of Urban Vertical Axis Wind Turbines

et al. 2018

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The central shaft is an important and indispensable part of a small scale urban vertical axis wind turbines (VAWTs). Normally, it is often operated at the same angular velocity as the wind turbine. The shedding vortices released by the rotating shaft have a negative effect on the blades passing the wake of the wind shaft. The objective of this study is to explore the influence of the wake of rotating shaft on the performance of the VAWT under different operational and physical parameters. The results show that when the ratio of the shaft diameter to the wind turbine diameter (α) is 9%, the power loss of the wind turbine in one revolution increases from 0% to 25% relative to that of no-shaft wind turbine (this is a numerical experiment for which the shaft of the VAWT is removed in order to study the interactions between the shaft and blade). When the downstream blades pass through the wake of the shaft, the pressure gradient of the suction side and pressure side is changed, and an adverse effect is also exerted on the lift generation in the blades. In addition, α = 5% is a critical value for the rotating shaft wind turbine (the lift-drag ratio trend of the shaft changes differently). In order to figure out the impacts of four factors; namely, tip speed ratios (TSRs), α, turbulence intensity (TI), and the relative surface roughness value (k s /d s ) on the performance of a VAWT system, the Taguchi method is employed in this study. The influence strength order of these factors is featured by TSRs > k s /d s > α > TI. Furthermore, within the range we have analyzed in this study, the optimal power coefficient (C p ) occurred under the condition of TSR = 4, α = 5%, k s /d s = 1 × 10 −2 , and TI = 8%.

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“…A full scale wind turbine unsteady aerodynamic simulations including effects of wind shear, tower shadow and yaw regulation were carried out using CFD numerical method by Cai el al. [15]. Although the CFD methods can provide more precision prediction results than both BEM and vortex methods, such methods require huge amount of computation resource.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Aerodynamic shape optimization of non-straight small wind turbine blades

Shen

Yang

Chen

et al. 2016

Energy Conversion and Management

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Small wind turbines usually operate in sub-optimal wind conditions in order to satisfy the demand where it is needed. The aerodynamic performance of small horizontal axis wind turbines highly depends on the geometry. In the present study, the geometry of wind turbine blades are optimized not only in terms of the distribution of the chord and twist angle but also with 3-dimensional stacking line. As the blade with 3-dimensional stacking line is given sweep in the plan of rotation and dihedral in the plan containing the blade and rotor axis, the common used blade element momentum method can no longer provide accurate aerodynamic performance solution. A lifting surface method with free wake model is used as the aerodynamic model in the present work. The annual energy production and the starting performance are selected as optimization objective. The starting performance is evaluated based on blade element method. The optimization of the geometry of the non-straight wind turbine blades is carried out by using a micro-genetic algorithm. Results show that the wind turbine blades with properly designed 3-dimensional stacking line can increase the annual energy production and have a better starting behavior compared with 2-dimensional-optimized blade geometries.

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Unsteady aerodynamics simulation of a full-scale horizontal axis wind turbine using CFD methodology

Cited by 94 publications

References 26 publications

Experimental and numerical analysis of a novel Darrieus rotor with variable pitch mechanism at low TSR

Experimental and numerical analysis of a novel Darrieus rotor with variable pitch mechanism at low TSR

Numerical Investigations of the Effects of the Rotating Shaft and Optimization of Urban Vertical Axis Wind Turbines

Aerodynamic shape optimization of non-straight small wind turbine blades

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