Computational analysis of three blade vertical axis wind turbine

Abstract

This paper discusses the performance of three blade vertical axis wind turbine. 2D computational flow analysis is carried out for different rotational speeds of the blades in a plane normal to wind turbine axis. It is implied that turbine blades have infinite aspect ratio. The selection is done based on the lift and drags generated by the various NACA series airfoil (NACA 0012, NACA 0015, NACA 0018, and NACA 0021) at a different angle of attacks, among them NACA 0015 airfoil is found to be most suitable one. A triangular meshed geometry is created and computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulation is carried out. The computational analysis is performed at various speeds of VAWT blade rotation where the position of the airfoil is made with respect to the wind. Torques generated at different blade positions in a VAWT and the forces by the turbine over one full complete cycle were studied.