Title: Computational analysis of three blade vertical axis wind turbine

Authors: Kalakanda Alfred Sunny; Pradeep Kumar; Nallapaneni Manoj Kumar; S. Priscilla

Addresses: Department of Aerospace Engineering, Karunya Institute of Technology and Sciences, Coimbatore, 641114, Tamil Nadu, India ' Department of Aerospace Engineering, Karunya Institute of Technology and Sciences, Coimbatore, 641114, Tamil Nadu, India ' Faculty of Electrical & Electronics Engineering, Universiti Malaysia Pahang, Pekan, Pahang, 26600, Malaysia ' Department of Aerospace Engineering, Karunya Institute of Technology and Sciences, Coimbatore, 641114, Tamil Nadu, India

Abstract: This paper discusses the performance of three blade vertical axis wind turbine. 2D computational flow analysis is carried out for different rotational speeds of the blades in a plane normal to wind turbine axis. It is implied that turbine blades have infinite aspect ratio. The selection is done based on the lift and drags generated by the various NACA series airfoil (NACA 0012, NACA 0015, NACA 0018, and NACA 0021) at a different angle of attacks, among them NACA 0015 airfoil is found to be most suitable one. A triangular meshed geometry is created and computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulation is carried out. The computational analysis is performed at various speeds of VAWT blade rotation where the position of the airfoil is made with respect to the wind. Torques generated at different blade positions in a VAWT and the forces by the turbine over one full complete cycle were studied.

Keywords: wind turbines; vertical axis wind turbine; 3-blade VAWT; NACA airfoil; unsteady flow; CFD; computational fluid dynamics; tangential forces; torque.

DOI: 10.1504/PIE.2018.095882

Progress in Industrial Ecology, An International Journal, 2018 Vol.12 No.1/2, pp.120 - 137

Received: 18 Oct 2017
Accepted: 16 May 2018
Published online: 25 Oct 2018 *

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