Aerodynamic analysis of a stator‐augmented linear cascade wind turbine

Abstract

AbstractThis study proposes to attach stator vanes to PowerWindow, a linear cascade wind turbine, to improve the flow direction in the device. By controlling the angle of attack, the stator vanes increase the acting force and decrease the undesirable force on PowerWindow blades. An analytical model using blade element momentum theory is developed for the new configuration, referred to as stator‐augmented PowerWindow. The analytical model has been verified by a computational fluid dynamic simulation. This study shows that the stator vanes are able to minimize/neutralize the undesirable axial force on PowerWindow so that the thrust coefficient decreases from 0.035 in the original model to −0.005 in the stator‐augmented one. In addition, by increasing the acting force on the blades, the stator augmentation will simultaneously enhance the coefficient of performance by up to 10%. This study also shows that by using stator vanes to control the angle of attack, unlike in the original PowerWindow, the direction of rotation of the stator‐augmented PowerWindow will remain the same regardless of the wind direction, increasing the utility of the device in practice.