Numerical Simulation of Flow Field around a Darrieus Vertical axis wind turbine to Estimate Rotational wakes Size

Due to the increasing energy cost and reducing fossil resources, also with respect to environmental pollutions, sustainable energy usage is inevitable. In the last decades wind power is allocated to a particular share of sustainable energies. Design and optimization of wind systems requires aerodynamics analysis. Computational fluid dynamics is a guaranteed method for aerodynamics analysis of wind turbines. In this work at first we introduce briefly Darrieus vertical axis wind turbines and discussed their advantages and disadvantages compared to the horizontal axis wind turbines. Then tried to use a computational fluid dynamics method to simulate flow field around the Darrieus vertical axis wind turbine with three straight blades that use NACA0016 airfoil as profile of blades. To do this, we used RNG K-ε turbulence model to solve RANS equations of fluid motion. Simulation has been performed for three values of the rotational speeds. Velocity distribution of wakes is obtained in some horizontal directions.

Keywords:

Computational Fluid Dynamics , Darrieus Wind Turbine , Sustainable Energy , Wind Energy , Vertical axis wind turbine.Manuscript