Drag based vertical axis wind turbine numerical efficiency evaluation

Abstract

Climate changes have led to a new approach of the energy situation of Europe, Asia and the Americas that face the effects of pollution. Thus, wind energy, considered clean energy - zero emissions of carbon and greenhouse gases, has become a viable option for increasing the life sustainability on Earth. Wind turbines convert the air currents kinetic energy into either electrical or mechanical energy. By using the CFD methods, it is possible to make quantifiable views of the flows associated with physical phenomena for which experimental tests would be very expensive if not impossible. In this paper a vertical axis wind turbine, Lenz type, axis was numerically analyzed. To determine the wind turbine efficiency, CFD methods were used with the Ansys Fluent software, analyzing two cases where the current velocity of 12 m/s and 14 m/s was varied. The unstructured meshes with quad elements were performed in Ansys meshing. In terms of numerical results obtained from unsteady analyzes, using the URANS method, emphasis was placed on observing the vortexes evolutions from a blade and their influence on the others with impact on the wind turbine efficiency. Thus, the variations of the torque coefficients and variations of the vorticity magnitude for different blade positions are presented. For future work, the numerical results will be validated using an experimental model which will be tested in the aerodynamic wind tunnel.Climate changes have led to a new approach of the energy situation of Europe, Asia and the Americas that face the effects of pollution. Thus, wind energy, considered clean energy - zero emissions of carbon and greenhouse gases, has become a viable option for increasing the life sustainability on Earth. Wind turbines convert the air currents kinetic energy into either electrical or mechanical energy. By using the CFD methods, it is possible to make quantifiable views of the flows associated with physical phenomena for which experimental tests would be very expensive if not impossible. In this paper a vertical axis wind turbine, Lenz type, axis was numerically analyzed. To determine the wind turbine efficiency, CFD methods were used with the Ansys Fluent software, analyzing two cases where the current velocity of 12 m/s and 14 m/s was varied. The unstructured meshes with quad elements were performed in Ansys meshing. In terms of numerical results obtained from unsteady analyzes, using the URANS method, emph...