CFD analysis of operational flow nature of a wind turbine model using environmental wind data from Nigerian Defence Academy (NDA)

Abstract


 
 
 A wind turbine is a machine which converts the power in the wind into electricity. It operates under varying wind speeds depending on the environmental wind conditions. In this paper, we have presented the operational flow analysis of a proposed wind turbine model in Nigerian Defence Academy (NDA) Kaduna. The case study is for 5.6m/s, 7.5m/s and 9.5m/s wind speed. The model design and assembly of the components were done with the help of SolidWorks 2018 and the operational flow analysis done with ANSYS 15.0. The result showed that the flow nature of the turbine model grew from laminar flow to turbulent flow increasingly with the environmental wind speed. The flow nature remained laminar from 0.0356 to 1780 Reynolds at 5.6m/s. At 7.5m/s wind speed, from laminar 0.403 Reynolds to turbulent 4290 Reynolds and at 9.5m/s, from laminar 0.381 Reynolds to turbulent 4900 Reynolds. High turbulent flow and mass imbalance nature depicts that phenomenon like wake and vibration of the system occurred.