Abstract
Two-dimensional computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulations are employed to investigate the effects of adding a circular-arc-shaped windshield on the performance of a Banki type vertical axis wind turbine (VAWT), particularly to the application where the VAWT is harnessing wind energy in highway caused by the passing vehicles. Unsteady Reynolds-Averaged Navier-Stokes (URANS) is the computational approach used to calculate the turbulent flow within the domain. Two sets of simulation cases based on two different vehicles (i.e., car and a bus) are performed with varying arc-length of the windshield. The results show that the windshield provides an increase in the energy captured by the VAWT by up to 16.14% compared to no windshield case when the car model is used. In contrast, windshield in all the simulation cases using a bus model gives a negative effect to VAWT performance where the worst case yields −64.77%.
Highlights
The complete global transition to renewable energy is still not expected to be achieved in the few years even in the case of theoretical energy modelling frameworks such as in REMap case [1]
The vertical axis wind turbine (VAWT) fits in this application because it does not require a yaw mechanism, allowing it to operate with the wind coming from different directions and it can self-start at a low wind speed
The effect of the windshield with different arclengths is is intended to block the portion of incoming wind that go against the VAWT rotation investigated by subjecting the flow domain into computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulations with a two-dimensional, causing the reduction of torque
Summary
The complete global transition to renewable energy is still not expected to be achieved in the few years even in the case of theoretical energy modelling frameworks such as in REMap case [1]. For applications where solutions are either at their early stages of commercialization or do not exist at present, the step is to foster technology innovation, along with enabling policy, and social and financial measures, to rapidly bring the emerging clean technologies to the marketplace [2] Relating the latter to the sector of wind energy, it is seen that it is important to give research attention to non-conventional installations of wind turbines such as their application in harnessing energy from the wake of passing vehicles along the highway. The effect of the windshield with different arclengths is is intended to block the portion of incoming wind that go against the VAWT rotation investigated by subjecting the flow domain into CFD simulations with a two-dimensional, causing the reduction of torque.
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