Numerical analysis of vertical axis wind turbine blades in ANSYS Fluent

Abstract

The limitation of the source and storage of fossil fuel and the rapid mitigation due to the rise of population, the renewable energy is the only key for the problem. Among the renewable energies, wind energy becomes the most promising potential as it is a green energy, and this research is focused on the same. The present study investigates the wind turbine blade simulation analysis for a vertical axis wind turbine blade based on the design parameters of NACA0018 airfoil. In this investigation, computational fluid dynamics analysis of vertical axis wind turbine blade is simulated by varying the angle of attack ranging from 12° to 15° while maintaining an incoming wind velocity of 8 m/s. Finite difference-based software “ANSYS FLUENT” is utilized for the simulation of this angle of attack analysis on vertical axis wind turbine considering the turbulence to be SST k-∊ model. Vertical axis wind turbine’s efficiency surely depends upon the blade profile and its orientation. Throughout the blades, velocity and pressure distribution is analyzed at different tip speed ratio with constant inlet velocity. The parameters like tip speed ratio, lift coefficient and power coefficient are reported in this study. In this study, at various angle of attack, simulation shows the uniform velocity distribution at optimum angle of attack of 15° and validation is done by drafting a graph between power coefficient and tip speed ratio, and for given angle of attack, lift coefficient is also validated via graph and feasible value of 1.689 is obtained from the simulation at angle of attack of 15° and comparison is also done by using velocity and pressure contours of blades at different angle of attack.