Abstract
The Wollongong wind turbine is a new kind of vertical axis wind turbine (VAWT) with its blades rotated by only 180° for each full revolution of the main rotor. A computational study on the effect of blade chord length on the turbine output performance of a four-bladed Wollongong turbine has been conducted using the commercial computational fluid dynamics (CFD) code ANSYS 13.0. A validation study was performed using a Savonius turbine and good agreement was obtained with experimental data. Both rotating and steady CFD simulations were conducted to investigate the performance of the VAWT. Rotating two-dimensional CFD simulations demonstrated that a turbine with a blade length of 550 mm has the highest power curve with a maximum averaged power coefficient of 0.3639, which is almost twice as high as that of a non-modified Savonius turbine. Steady two-dimensional CFD simulations indicated that the Wollongong turbine has a good self-starting capability with an averaged static torque coefficient of 1.09, which is about six times as high as that of a Savonius turbine.
Highlights
In recent years, people have shown increasing attention on renewable energy with increasing environmental pollution, rising energy demand, and depleting fossil fuel resources
Steady twodimensional computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulations indicated that the Wollongong turbine has a good self-starting capability with an averaged static torque coefficient of 1.09, which is about six times as high as that of a Savonius turbine
Wind turbines can be classified into two groups: horizontal axis wind turbine (HAWT) and vertical axis wind turbine (VAWT), depending on the relative direction between the turbine rotational axis and the wind direction
Summary
People have shown increasing attention on renewable energy with increasing environmental pollution, rising energy demand, and depleting fossil fuel resources. Wind energy utilization has become a research hotspot because it is economical and experimental. Wind turbines can be classified into two groups: horizontal axis wind turbine (HAWT) and vertical axis wind turbine (VAWT), depending on the relative direction between the turbine rotational axis and the wind direction. VAWTs rotate around an axis perpendicular to the wind direction. VAWTs are less efficient than HAWTs, but they operate effectively in the presence of highly unstable, turbulent wind flow patterns and are more suitable for power generation in places with a complex terrain, such as remote rural areas where erratic wind flow patterns are quite common. VAWTs can operate regardless of the flow direction and are suitable for small scale, distributed power generation
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