Numerical Investigations of a Vertical Axis Wind Turbine with Variable Pitch

Abstract

In the last decades, the wind energy became more attractive to Romania, and thus many resources are allocated to develop the energetic systems based on wind energy. In this work the performances of a variable-pitch vertical axis wind turbine were investigated using CFD (ANSYS Fluent). A computational methodology has been developed which uses the moving grid option offered by the ANSYS Fluent code, to evaluate amount of energy extracted from the wind. A transient simulation is done for fixed pitch and variable pitch vertical axis wind turbine using a k   SST (Shear Stress Transport) turbulence model. Main parameters like moment coefficient Cm, and power coefficient CP are investigated. The conclusion was that the variable-pitch vertical axis wind turbine has the best power coefficient at low/moderate tip speed ratio.