Aerodynamic Analysis of a Helical Vertical Axis Wind Turbine

Qian Cheng, Xiaolan Liu, Ho Seong Ji, Kyung Chun Kim and Bo Yang
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Qian Cheng: School of Mechanical Engineering, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai 200240, China
Xiaolan Liu: School of Mechanical Engineering, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai 200240, China
Ho Seong Ji: School of Mechanical Engineering, Pusan National University, Busan 609-735, Korea
Kyung Chun Kim: School of Mechanical Engineering, Pusan National University, Busan 609-735, Korea
Bo Yang: School of Mechanical Engineering, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai 200240, China

Energies, 2017, vol. 10, issue 4, 1-17

Abstract: Vertical axis wind turbines (VAWTs) are gradually receiving more and more interest due to their lower sensitivity to the yawed wind direction. Compared with straight blades VAWT, blades with a certain helicity show a better aerodynamic performance and less noise emission. Nowadays computational fluid dynamics technology is frequently applied to VAWTs and gives results that can reflect real flow phenomena. In this paper, a 2D flow field simulation of a helical vertical axis wind turbine (HVAWT) with four blades has been carried out by means of a large eddy simulation (LES). The power output and fluctuation at each azimuthal position are studied with different tip speed ratio (TSR). The result shows that the variation of angle of attack (AOA) and blade-wake interaction under different TSR conditions are the two main reasons for the effects of TSR on power output. Furthermore, in order to understand the characteristics of the HVAWT along the spanwise direction, the 3D full size flow field has also been studied by the means of unsteady Reynold Averaged Navier-Stokes (U-RANS) and 3D effects on the turbine performance can be observed by the spanwise pressure distribution. It shows that tip vortex near blade tips and second flow in the spanwise direction also play a major role on the performance of VAWTs.

Keywords: helical vertical axis wind turbine (HVAWT); power fluctuation; blade-wake interaction; three dimensional effects (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q Q0 Q4 Q40 Q41 Q42 Q43 Q47 Q48 Q49 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2017
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (7)

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