Reduction in the torque ripple of a vertical axis wind turbine through foil pitching optimization

2019 ◽  
Vol 44 (2) ◽  
pp. 115-124 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gareth Erfort ◽  
Theodor W. von Backström ◽  
Gerhard Venter
Keyword(s):  
Wind Turbine ◽  
Urban Areas ◽  
Vertical Axis ◽  
Torque Ripple ◽  
Power Coefficient ◽  
Small Scale ◽  
Vertical Axis Wind Turbine ◽  
Similar Reduction ◽  
Vertical Axis Wind Turbines ◽  
Gradient Based

Vertical axis wind turbines have a place in the small scale renewable energy market. They are not currently implemented on a commercial scale but have found a niche space in urban areas. Here, the turbulent wind conditions and limited space are more easily tapped into with a vertical axis wind turbine. However, the challenges facing these types of turbines have hampered deployment. One of these issues is the fluctuating torque experienced during operation, which can lead to over-designed power trains. Genetic- and gradient-based optimization is applied to an analytical model of a vertical axis wind turbine, in order to reduce the torque fluctuation while attempting to maintain a high power coefficient. The reduction in torque ripple is achieved through a sinusoidal pitching motion of the blades. The torque ripple can be reduced by 10% with a similar reduction in power coefficient.

Computational fluid dynamic analysis of roof-mounted vertical-axis wind turbine with diffuser shroud, flange, and vanes

2018 ◽  
Vol 42 (4) ◽  
pp. 404-415
Author(s):  
H. Abu-Thuraia ◽  
C. Aygun ◽  
M. Paraschivoiu ◽  
M.A. Allard
Keyword(s):  
Wind Turbine ◽  
Urban Areas ◽  
Guide Vane ◽  
Fluid Dynamic ◽  
Vertical Axis ◽  
Power Coefficient ◽  
Small Scale ◽  
Vertical Axis Wind Turbine ◽  
Guide Vanes ◽  
Turbine Design

Advances in wind power and tidal power have matured considerably to offer clean and sustainable energy alternatives. Nevertheless, distributed small-scale energy production from wind in urban areas has been disappointing because of very low efficiencies of the turbines. A novel wind turbine design — a seven-bladed Savonius vertical-axis wind turbine (VAWT) that is horizontally oriented inside a diffuser shroud and mounted on top of a building — has been shown to overcome the drawback of low efficiency. The objective this study was to analyze the performance of this novel wind turbine design for different wind directions and for different guide vanes placed at the entrance of the diffuser shroud. The flow field over the turbine and guide vanes was analyzed using computational fluid dynamics (CFD) on a 3D grid for multiple tip-speed ratios (TSRs). Four wind directions and three guide-vane angles were analyzed. The wind-direction analysis indicates that the power coefficient decreases to about half when the wind is oriented at 45° to the main axis of the turbine. The analysis of the guide vanes indicates a maximum power coefficient of 0.33 at a vane angle of 55°.

Adaptive surface distortions for torque ripple control in vertical-axis wind turbines

2019 ◽  
pp. 0309524X1987402 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gareth Erfort ◽  
Theodor W von Backström ◽  
Gerhard Venter
Keyword(s):  
Wind Turbine ◽  
Wind Turbines ◽  
Fluid Dynamic ◽  
Vertical Axis ◽  
Torque Ripple ◽  
Small Scale ◽  
Blade Design ◽  
Vertical Axis Wind Turbine ◽  
Horizontal Axis Wind Turbine ◽  
Vertical Axis Wind Turbines

Vertical-axis wind turbines have been confined to small-scale generation in urban environments where their omnidirectional capability offers them an advantage over the more ubiquitous horizontal-axis wind turbine. With a drive towards renewable energy, more opportunities exist for the implementation of wind turbines in a multitude of environments. Based on its inherent operational drawbacks, the vertical-axis wind turbine has not undergone extensive investigation. Recently, there has been a resurgence of interest in the technology. This article addresses the torque ripple, a variation in torque produced by the turbine, present during operation. The variation in torque generated by a vertical-axis wind turbine increases the likelihood of failure due to fatigue. Current treatment is symptomatic and addresses the result of the torque fluctuation and not the cause. A novel blade design, capable of altering the lift and drag response through shape alteration, is presented as a solution. The blade design and operation is achieved through genetic algorithm optimization and computational fluid dynamic simulations. Comparisons with previous work show the novel blade presented here surpasses the reduction seen with pitching solutions. A 25% reduction in torque ripple was demonstrated for a 17% reduction in performance coefficient using the surface distortion approach. This surpasses the foil pitching approach which achieved a 15% torque ripple reduction for the same loss in performance coefficient.

scholarly journals Numerical Investigation of the Savonius Vertical Axis Wind Turbine and Evaluation of the Effect of the Overlap Parameter in Both Horizontal and Vertical Directions on Its Performance

Symmetry ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 11 (6) ◽  
pp. 821 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mohammad Ebrahimpour ◽  
Rouzbeh Shafaghat ◽  
Rezvan Alamian ◽  
Mostafa Safdari Shadloo
Keyword(s):  
Wind Turbine ◽  
Urban Areas ◽  
Weather Conditions ◽  
Vertical Axis ◽  
Power Coefficient ◽  
External Diameter ◽  
Vertical Axis Wind Turbine ◽  
Complex Process ◽  
Overlap Ratio ◽  
Volume Method

Exploiting wind energy, which is a complex process in urban areas, requires turbines suitable for unfavorable weather conditions, in order to trap the wind from different directions; Savonius turbines are suitable for these conditions. In this paper, the effect of overlap ratios and the position of blades on a vertical axis wind turbine is comprehensively investigated and analyzed. For this purpose, two positive and negative overlap situations are first defined along the X-axis and examined at the different tip speed ratios of the blade, while maintaining the size of the external diameter of the rotor, to find the optimum point; then, the same procedure is done along the Y-axis. The finite volume method is used to solve the computational fluid dynamics. Two-dimensional numerical simulations are performed using URANS equations and the sliding mesh method. The turbulence model employed is a realizable K-ε model. According to the values of the dynamic torque and power coefficient, while investigating horizontal and vertical overlaps along the X- and Y-axis, the blades with overlap ratios of HOLR = +0.15 and VOLR = +0.1 show better performances when compared to other corresponding overlaps. Accordingly, the average Cm and Cp improvements are 16% and 7.5%, respectively, compared to the base with a zero overlap ratio.

scholarly journals An experimental study of the optimal design parameters of a wind power tower used to improve the performance of vertical axis wind turbines

2018 ◽  
Vol 10 (9) ◽  
pp. 168781401879954
Author(s):  
Soo-Yong Cho ◽  
Sang-Kyu Choi ◽  
Jin-Gyun Kim ◽  
Chong-Hyun Cho
Keyword(s):  
Experimental Study ◽  
Optimal Design ◽  
Wind Turbine ◽  
Wind Power ◽  
Wind Turbines ◽  
Vertical Axis ◽  
Power Coefficient ◽  
Design Parameters ◽  
Vertical Axis Wind Turbine ◽  
Vertical Axis Wind Turbines

In order to augment the performance of vertical axis wind turbines, wind power towers have been used because they increase the frontal area. Typically, the wind power tower is installed as a circular column around a vertical axis wind turbine because the vertical axis wind turbine should be operated in an omnidirectional wind. As a result, the performance of the vertical axis wind turbine depends on the design parameters of the wind power tower. An experimental study was conducted in a wind tunnel to investigate the optimal design parameters of the wind power tower. Three different sizes of guide walls were applied to test with various wind power tower design parameters. The tested vertical axis wind turbine consisted of three blades of the NACA0018 profile and its solidity was 0.5. In order to simulate the operation in omnidirectional winds, the wind power tower was fabricated to be rotated. The performance of the vertical axis wind turbine was severely varied depending on the azimuthal location of the wind power tower. Comparison of the performance of the vertical axis wind turbine was performed based on the power coefficient obtained by averaging for the one periodic azimuth angle. The optimal design parameters were estimated using the results obtained under equal experimental conditions. When the non-dimensional inner gap was 0.3, the performance of the vertical axis wind turbine was better than any other gaps.

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

Energies ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 11 (7) ◽  
pp. 1870 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lidong Zhang ◽  
Kaiqi Zhu ◽  
Junwei Zhong ◽  
Ling Zhang ◽  
Tieliu Jiang ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Wind Turbine ◽  
Wind Turbines ◽  
Suction Side ◽  
Vertical Axis ◽  
Power Coefficient ◽  
Small Scale ◽  
Physical Parameters ◽  
Rotating Shaft ◽  
Vertical Axis Wind Turbines ◽  
Negative Effect

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 (ks/ds) 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 > ks/ds > α > TI. Furthermore, within the range we have analyzed in this study, the optimal power coefficient (Cp) occurred under the condition of TSR = 4, α = 5%, ks/ds = 1 × 10−2, and TI = 8%.

Development of the Dual Vertical Axis Wind Turbine Using Computational Fluid Dynamics

2017 ◽  
Vol 139 (12) ◽  
Author(s):  
Gabriel Naccache ◽  
Marius Paraschivoiu
Keyword(s):  
Fluid Dynamics ◽  
Computational Fluid Dynamics ◽  
Wind Turbine ◽  
Urban Areas ◽  
High Efficiency ◽  
Three Dimensional ◽  
Vertical Axis ◽  
Power Coefficient ◽  
Circular Path ◽  
Vertical Axis Wind Turbine

Small vertical axis wind turbines (VAWTs) are good candidates to extract energy from wind in urban areas because they are easy to install, service, and do not generate much noise; however, the efficiency of small turbines is low. Here-in a new turbine, with high efficiency, is proposed. The novel design is based on the classical H-Darrieus VAWT. VAWTs produce the highest power when the blade chord is perpendicular to the incoming wind direction. The basic idea behind the proposed turbine is to extend that said region of maximum power by having the blades continue straight instead of following a circular path. This motion can be performed if the blades turn along two axes; hence, it was named dual vertical axis wind turbine (D-VAWT). The analysis of this new turbine is done through the use of computational fluid dynamics (CFD) with two-dimensional (2D) and three-dimensional (3D) simulations. While 2D is used to validate the methodology, 3D is used to get an accurate estimate of the turbine performance. The analysis of a single blade is performed and the turbine shows that a power coefficient of 0.4 can be achieved, reaching performance levels high enough to compete with the most efficient VAWTs. The D-VAWT is still far from full optimization, but the analysis presented here shows the hidden potential and serves as proof of concept.

scholarly journals Design of Rotor Blades for Vertical Axis Wind Turbine with Wind Flow Modifier for Low Wind Profile Areas

2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (19) ◽  
pp. 8050 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mohanasundaram Anthony ◽  
Valsalal Prasad ◽  
Kannadasan Raju ◽  
Mohammed H. Alsharif ◽  
Zong Woo Geem ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Wind Turbine ◽  
Urban Areas ◽  
Wind Profile ◽  
Vertical Axis ◽  
Maximum Power ◽  
Power Coefficient ◽  
Wind Flow ◽  
Efficient Design ◽  
Vertical Axis Wind Turbine ◽  
Flow Modifier

This work focuses on the design and analysis of wind flow modifier (WFM) modeling of a vertical axis wind turbine (VAWT) for low wind profile urban areas. A simulation is carried out to examine the performance of an efficient low aspect ratio C-shaped rotor and a proposed involute-type rotor. Further, the WFM model is adapted with a stack of decreased diameter tubes from wind inlet to outlet. It accelerates the wind velocity, and its effectiveness is examined on the involute turbine. Numerical analysis is performed with a realizable K-ε model to monitor the rotor blade performance in the computational fluid dynamics (CFD) ANSYS Fluent software tool. This viscous model with an optimal three-blade rotor with 0.96 m2 rotor swept area is simulated between the turbine rotational speeds ranging from 50 to 250 rpm. The parameters, such as lift–drag coefficient, lift–drag forces, torque, power coefficient, and power at various turbine speeds, are observed. It results in a maximum power coefficient of 0.071 for the drag force rotor and 0.22 for the lift force involute rotor. Moreover, the proposed WFM with an involute rotor extensively improves the maximum power coefficient to an appreciable value of 0.397 at 5 m/s wind speed, and this facilitates efficient design in the low wind profile area.

scholarly journals Fabrication and Performance Evaluation of Savonious Vertical Axis Wind Turbine for Uncertain Speed Regions

2017 ◽  
Vol 13 (2) ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Performance Evaluation ◽  
Wind Turbine ◽  
Wind Turbines ◽  
Urban Areas ◽  
Vertical Axis ◽  
Design Parameters ◽  
Vertical Axis Wind Turbine ◽  
Horizontal Axis Wind Turbine ◽  
Vertical Axis Wind Turbines ◽  
And Performance

The consumption of electricity in urban as well as rural is increasing every day and became an essential commodity for household and industrial purposes. Unfortunately the availability of electrical energy in India is not sufficient to the required demand and it is essential to discover and generate energy from non-conventional sources with cheap cost. On the same time it is necessary to reduce the consumption of conventional sources and to save fuel. Among all the renewable resources, wind is one of the best resources available all the time at free of cost. Especially vertical axis wind turbines (VAWT) are self-starting, omni directional. They require no yaw mechanism to continuously orient towards the wind direction and provide a more reliable energy conversion technology, as compared to horizontal axis wind turbine. Particularly savonius vertical axis wind turbines (SVAWT) are suitable and practically possible at low or uncertain wind speed regimes. They can be fitted on rooftops and also suitable for the urban areas where electricity is not available properly. This project deals with the fabrication and performance evaluation of savonius vertical axis wind turbine using two blade rotor. The amount of power developed by the wind turbine is calculated under theoretical and practical conditions and aerodynamics coefficients are also estimated. And various design parameters of savonious rotor are identified and determined.

Numerical Investigation of a Vertical Axis Wind Turbine Performance Characterization Using New Variable Pitch Control Scheme

2019 ◽  
Vol 142 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Amin A. Mohammed ◽  
Ahmet Z. Sahin ◽  
Hassen M. Ouakad
Keyword(s):  
Wind Turbine ◽  
Pitch Angle ◽  
Numerical Study ◽  
Average Power ◽  
Vertical Axis ◽  
Power Coefficient ◽  
Small Scale ◽  
Vertical Axis Wind Turbine ◽  
Variable Pitch ◽  
De Algorithm

Abstract A double multiple streamtube model coupled with variable pitch methodology is used to analyze the performance characteristics of a small-scale straight-bladed Darrieus type vertical axis wind turbine (SB-VAWT). The numerical study revealed that a fixed pitch of −2.5 deg could greatly enhance the performance of the wind turbine. However, no improvement is observed in the starting torque capacity. Furthermore, the performance of upwind and downwind zones has been investigated, and it is found that the VAWT starting capacity is improved by increasing/decreasing the pitch angle upwind/downwind of the turbine. To optimize the performance, four cases of variable pitch angle schemes of sinusoidal nature were examined. The parameters of the sinusoidal functions were optimized using differential evolution (DE) algorithm with different cost functions. The results showed improvement in the power coefficient, yet with low starting capacity enhancement. Among the objective functions used in DE algorithm, the negative of the average power coefficient is found to lead to the best starting capacity with moderate peak power coefficient.

scholarly journals Numerical evaluation of aerodynamic performances of vertical-axis wind turbine rotor with flow concentrator

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jelena Svorcan ◽  
◽  
Ognjen Peković ◽  
Toni Ivanov ◽  
Miloš Vorkapić ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Wind Turbine ◽  
Three Dimensional ◽  
Vertical Axis ◽  
Turbine Rotor ◽  
Operating Conditions ◽  
Power Coefficient ◽  
Small Scale ◽  
Vertical Axis Wind Turbine ◽  
Flow Simulations ◽  
Wind Speeds

With wind energy extraction constantly increasing, the interest in small-scale urban wind turbines is also expanding. Given that these machines often work in adverse operating conditions (Earth’s boundary layer, vortex trails of surrounding objects, small and changeable wind speeds), additional elements that locally augment wind velocity and facilitate turbine start may be installed. This paper investigates possible benefits of adding an optimized flow concentrator to a vertical-axis wind turbine (VAWT) rotor. Three-dimensional, unsteady, turbulent, incompressible flow simulations of both isolated rotor consisting of three straight blades and a rotor with flow concentrator have been performed in ANSYS FLUENT by finite volume method for several different operational regimes. This type of flow simulations is challenging since flow angles are high, numerous flow phenomena and instabilities are present and the interaction between the blades and detached vortices can be significant. The rotational motion of the blades is solved by the unsteady Sliding Mesh (SM) approach. Flow field is modeled by Unsteady Reynolds Averaged Navier-Stokes (URANS) equations with k-ω SST turbulence model used for closure. Both quantitative and qualitative examinations of the obtained numerical results are presented. In particular, the two computed power coefficient curves are compared and the advantages of installing a flow concentrator are accentuated.

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