Numerical Analysis of the Dynamic Interaction between Two Closely Spaced Vertical-Axis Wind Turbines

Yutaka Hara, Yoshifumi Jodai, Tomoyuki Okinaga and Masaru Furukawa
Additional contact information
Yutaka Hara: Faculty of Engineering, Tottori University, 4-101 Koyama-Minami, Tottori 680-8552, Japan
Yoshifumi Jodai: Department of Mechanical Engineering, Kagawa National Institute of Technology (KOSEN), Kagawa College, 355 Chokushi, Takamatsu 761-8058, Japan
Tomoyuki Okinaga: Graduate School of Engineering, Tottori University, 4-101 Koyama-Minami, Tottori 680-8552, Japan
Masaru Furukawa: Faculty of Engineering, Tottori University, 4-101 Koyama-Minami, Tottori 680-8552, Japan

Energies, 2021, vol. 14, issue 8, 1-23

Abstract: To investigate the optimum layouts of small vertical-axis wind turbines, a two-dimensional analysis of dynamic fluid body interaction is performed via computational fluid dynamics for a rotor pair in various configurations. The rotational speed of each turbine rotor (diameter: D = 50 mm) varies based on the equation of motion. First, the dependence of rotor performance on the gap distance ( gap ) between two rotors is investigated. For parallel layouts, counter-down (CD) layouts with blades moving downwind in the gap region yield a higher mean power than counter-up (CU) layouts with blades moving upwind in the gap region. CD layouts with gap / D = 0.5–1.0 yield a maximum average power that is 23% higher than that of an isolated single rotor. Assuming isotropic bidirectional wind speed, co-rotating (CO) layouts with the same rotational direction are superior to the combination of CD and CU layouts regardless of the gap distance. For tandem layouts, the inverse-rotation (IR) configuration shows an earlier wake recovery than the CO configuration. For 16-wind-direction layouts, both the IR and CO configurations indicate similar power distribution at gap / D = 2.0. For the first time, this study demonstrates the phase synchronization of two rotors via numerical simulation.

Keywords: wind energy; vertical-axis wind turbine; computational fluid dynamics; dynamic interaction; closely spaced arrangements; phase synchronization; wind farm; dryland (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: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (8)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/14/8/2286/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/14/8/2286/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jeners:v:14:y:2021:i:8:p:2286-:d:538862

Access Statistics for this article

Energies is currently edited by Ms. Agatha Cao

More articles in Energies from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().