Parametric study of H-Darrieus vertical-axis turbines using CFD simulations

Abstract

A parametric study of vertical axis turbines of the H-Darrieus type is conducted using state-of-the-art Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) and the k-ω Shear Stress Transport RANS model in its unsteady form. Although most parameters have previously been investigated individually, the effect of solidity, number of blades, tip speed ratio, Reynolds number, fixed blade pitch angle, and blade thickness on the aerodynamic efficiency of the turbine is evaluated using the same performance evaluation set-up in order to determine what would be the best aerodynamic configuration and operation parameter in a given application. The quantitative impact of 3D effects associated with the blade aspect ratio and the use of end-plates is also investigated. For high-Reynolds applications, optimal radius-based solidity is found to be around σ=0.2, while higher solidities show a lower maximum efficiency than what was previously published using simpler streamtube based methods. In 3D, a small blade aspect ratio (AR=7) leads to a relative efficiency drop of nearly 60% compared to the 2D prediction. Longer blades improve the 3D efficiency greatly. End-plates are found to have a positive effect on power extraction performances, as long as their size and thus their drag are limited.