Computational and Experimental Study on Vertical Axis Wind Turbine in Search for an Efficient Design

TLDR: In this paper, 3Dimensional CAD models of various simple airfoils have been designed in Solidworks and other shape, CFD simulation has been performed with five different VAWT designed models.

Abstract: Wind alone can fulfill most of the energy requirement of the world by its efficient conversion in to energy. Though Horizontal Axis Wind Turbine (HAWT) is more popular but needs high wind speed to generate energy. On the other hand Vertical Axis Wind Turbine (VAWT) needs low wind speed and can be installed anywhere which are some of the reasons for this research. The main objective of this research is to improve the design and performance of VAWT to make it more attractive, efficient, durable and sustainable. For a VAWT the blades perform the main role to extract energy from the wind. Airfoil is considered as the blade for this new design of VAWT. Airfoil has some good aerodynamic characteristics, match with the characteristics of Savonius type VAWT, such as good stall characteristics and little roughness effect, relatively high drag and low lift coefficient. Integration of Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) simulation and wind tunnel experimentation has made the current research more acceptable. 3-Dimensional CAD models of various simple airfoils have been designed in Solidworks. Using these airfoils and other shape, CFD simulation has been performed with five different VAWT designed models. Moving mesh and fluid flow simulation have been developed in CFD software FLUENT. The findings of these numerical simulations provided pressure contour, velocity contour, drag coefficient, lift coefficient,