Numerical and Experimental Investigations on a Bio-Inspired Design of Darrieus Vertical Axis Wind Turbine Blades With Leading Edge Tubercles

2022 ◽  
pp. 211-224
Author(s):  
Nishant Mishra ◽  
Punit Prakash ◽  
Anand Sagar Gupta ◽  
Jishnav Dawar ◽  
Alok Kumar ◽  
...  

Various improvements can be made to Darrieus vertical axis wind turbines (VAWT) for maximum performance in an urban environment. One such improvement is the inclusion of bio-inspired leading-edge tubercles to increase the aerodynamic performance. These structures, found on the flippers of humpback whales, are believed to aid the mammal in quick maneuvering. The objective of the chapter is to investigate and compare the performance of a Darrieus type VAWT with the inclusion of leading edge tubercles. The performance of the turbine with leading-edge tubercles on the blades is compared with the turbine with normal blade, computationally (with computational fluid dynamics using transition SST turbulence model) and experimentally. The focus lies on building an experimental setup to compare the performance of leading-edge tubercles with the baseline turbine.

2018 ◽  
Vol 53 ◽  
pp. 02004
Author(s):  
Qiuyun Mo ◽  
Jiabei Yin ◽  
Lin Chen ◽  
Weihao Liu ◽  
Li Jiang ◽  
...  

In this paper, a 2D off-grid small compact model of vertical axis wind turbine was established. The sliding grid technology, the RNG turbulence model and the Coupld algorithm was applied to simulate the unsteady value of the model's aerodynamic performance. Through the analysis on the flow field at difference moments, the rules about velocity fields, vortices distributions and the wind turbine's total torque were obtained. The results show that: the speed around wind turbine blades have obvious gradient, and the velocity distribution at different times show large differences in the computional domain. In the rotating domain vorticity is large. With away from the rotation domain, vorticity reduced quickly. In the process of rotating for vertical axis wind turbine, the wind turbine's total torque showed alternating positive and negative changes.


2019 ◽  
Vol 56 (4) ◽  
pp. 910-917
Author(s):  
Alexandru-Polifron Chirita ◽  
Paul-Petru Bere ◽  
Radu Iulian Rdoi ◽  
Liliana Dumitrescu

The article presents the technology and process, whereby a small-scale demonstration model and the real-scale prototype of vertical axis wind turbine blades are produced using rapid prototyping technology (3DP) and GFRP surface coatings, which help to improve the mechanical properties. In the end of the article the results of the production process and the advantages of combining these technologies are presented.


2018 ◽  
Vol 841 ◽  
pp. 746-766 ◽  
Author(s):  
Abel-John Buchner ◽  
Julio Soria ◽  
Damon Honnery ◽  
Alexander J. Smits

Vertical axis wind turbine blades are subject to rapid, cyclical variations in angle of attack and relative airspeed which can induce dynamic stall. This phenomenon poses an obstacle to the greater implementation of vertical axis wind turbines because dynamic stall can reduce turbine efficiency and induce structural vibrations and noise. This study seeks to provide a more comprehensive description of dynamic stall in vertical axis wind turbines, with an emphasis on understanding its parametric dependence and scaling behaviour. This problem is of practical relevance to vertical axis wind turbine design but the inherent coupling of the pitching and velocity scales in the blade kinematics makes this problem of more broad fundamental interest as well. Experiments are performed using particle image velocimetry in the vicinity of the blades of a straight-bladed gyromill-type vertical axis wind turbine at blade Reynolds numbers of between 50 000 and 140 000, tip speed ratios between $\unicode[STIX]{x1D706}=1$ to $\unicode[STIX]{x1D706}=5$, and dimensionless pitch rates of $0.10\leqslant K_{c}\leqslant 0.20$. The effect of these factors on the evolution, strength and timing of vortex shedding from the turbine blades is determined. It is found that tip speed ratio alone is insufficient to describe the circulation production and vortex shedding behaviour from vertical axis wind turbine blades, and a scaling incorporating the dimensionless pitch rate is proposed.


2021 ◽  
pp. 0309524X2110071
Author(s):  
Usman Butt ◽  
Shafqat Hussain ◽  
Stephan Schacht ◽  
Uwe Ritschel

Experimental investigations of wind turbine blades having NACA airfoils 0021 and 4412 with and without tubercles on the leading edge have been performed in a wind tunnel. It was found that the lift coefficient of the airfoil 0021 with tubercles was higher at Re = 1.2×105 and 1.69×105 in post critical region (at higher angle of attach) than airfoils without tubercles but this difference relatively diminished at higher Reynolds numbers and beyond indicating that there is no effect on the lift coefficients of airfoils with tubercles at higher Reynolds numbers whereas drag coefficient remains unchanged. It is noted that at Re = 1.69×105, the lift coefficient of airfoil without tubercles drops from 0.96 to 0.42 as the angle of attack increases from 15° to 20° which is about 56% and the corresponding values of lift coefficient for airfoil with tubercles are 0.86 and 0.7 at respective angles with18% drop.


2015 ◽  
Vol 787 ◽  
pp. 250-254 ◽  
Author(s):  
T. Micha Premkumar ◽  
Sivamani Seralathan ◽  
T. Mohan ◽  
N.N.P. Saran Reddy

This is Part-1 of the two-part paper in considering the effect of cambered airfoil blades on self-starting of vertical axis wind turbine. Part 1 reports the numerical studies on self-starting of vertical axis wind turbine with comparative studies involving NACA 0012 and cambered airfoil NACA 4415. Part 2 of the paper deals with numerical studies of NACA 0018 and cambered air foil NACA 63415. Darrieus type VAWT is attracting many researchers attention for its inherent advantages and its diversified applications. However, a disadvantage is when the rotor is stationary, no net rotational forces arises, even at high-wind speed. The principal advantage of the vertical axis format is their ability to accept wind from any direction without yawing mechanism. However, self-starting capability is the major drawbacks. Moreover, literatures based on computational analysis involving the cambered airfoil are few only. The objective of this present study is to select the suitable airfoil blades on self-starting of VAWT at low-Reynolds number. The numerical studies are carried out to identify self-starting capability of the airfoil using CFD analysis by studying the flow field over the vertical axis wind turbine blades. The commercial CFD code, ANSYS CFX 13.0© was used for the present studies. Initially, the flow over NACA 0012 was simulated and analyzed for different angles of attacks and similarly carried out for NACA 4415. The contours of static pressure distribution and velocity as well as the force and torque were obtained. Even though the lift force for cambered airfoil NACA 4415 is higher, based on the torque values of the above blade profiles, asymmetrical airfoil NACA 0012 is found to be appropriate for self-starring of VAWT.


Author(s):  
Sourabh Deshpande ◽  
Nithin Rao ◽  
Nitin Pradhan ◽  
John L. Irwin

Utilizing the advantages of additive manufacturing methods, redesigning, building and testing of an existing integral Savonius / Darrieus “Lenz2 Wing” style vertical axis wind turbine is predicted to improve power generation efficiency. The current wind turbine blades and supports made from aluminum plate and sheet are limiting the power generation due to the overall weight. The new design is predicted to increase power generation when compared to the current design due to the lightweight spiral Darrieus shaped hollow blade made possible by 3D printing, along with an internal Savonius blade made from aluminum sheet and traditional manufacturing techniques. The design constraints include 3D printing the turbine blades in a 0.4 × 0.4 × 0.3 m work envelope while using a Stratasys Fortus 400mc and thus the wind turbine blades are split into multiple parts with dovetail joint features, when bonded together result in a 1.2 m tall working prototype. Appropriate allowance in the mating dovetail joints are considered to facilitate the fit and bonding, as well as angle, size and placement of the dovetail to maximize strength. The spiral shape and Darrieus style cross section of the blade that provides the required lift enabling it to rotate from the static condition are oriented laterally for 3D printing to maximize strength. The bonding of the dovetail joints is carried out effectively using an acetone solution dip. The auxiliary components of the wind turbine which include the center support pole, top and bottom support, and center Savonius blades are manufactured using lightweight aluminum. Design features are included in the 3D printed blade parts so that they can be assembled with the aluminum parts in bolted connections. Analysis of the 3D CAD models show that the hybrid aluminum and hollow 3D printed blade construction provides a 50% cost savings over a 3D printed fully solid blade design while minimizing weight and maximizing the strength where necessary. Analysis of the redesign includes a detailed weight comparison, structural strength and the cost of production. Results include linear static finite element analysis for the strength in dovetail joint bonding and the aluminum to 3D printed connections. Additional data reported are the time frame for the design and manufacturing of the system, budget, and an operational analysis of the wind turbine with concern for safety. Results are analyzed to determine the advantages in utilizing a hybrid additive manufacturing and aluminum construction for producing a more efficient vertical axis wind turbine. Techniques used in the production of this type of wind turbine blade are planned to be utilized in similar applications such as a lightweight hovercraft propeller blade design to be tested in future research projects.


2014 ◽  
Vol 529 ◽  
pp. 296-302 ◽  
Author(s):  
Wei Zuo ◽  
Shun Kang

The aerodynamic performance and the bypass flow field of a vertical axis wind turbine under self-starting are investigated using CFD simulations in this paper. The influence of pitch angle variations on the performance of the wind turbine during self-starting is presented. A two-dimensional model of the wind turbine with three blades is employed. A commercial software FlowVision is employed in this paper, which uses dynamic Cartesian grid. The SST turbulence model is used for turbulence modeling, which assumes the flow full turbulent. Based on the comparison between the computed time-dependent variations of the rotation speed with the experimental data, the time-dependent variations of the torque are presented. The characteristics of self-starting of the wind turbine are analyzed with the pitch angle of 0o、-2oand 2o. The influence of pitch angle variations on two-dimensional unsteady viscous flow field through velocity contours is discussed in detail.


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