Performance investigation of cavity shaped blade on H-Darrieus wind turbine in built environmental condition

Abstract

ABSTRACT This present investigation is carried out to improve the performance of H-Darrieus wind turbine in the built environment, where it mostly experiences low wind speed. Here the effect of circular cavity on aerodynamic performance of the rotor is investigated using a subsonic wind tunnel test facility to check which side cavity on the airfoil (inner or outer side) is beneficial in terms of the rotor’s static and dynamic performances. For this, S1046 and NACA 0021 airfoil blades are considered at various low wind speeds of 5, 6 and 7 m/s for different rotor aspect ratios. A Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) study is also simultaneously conducted to realize the intrinsic flow physics of the cavity airfoil blade profile. Results show that inner surface cavity on both the blades improves their self-starting ability but only at 5 m/s wind speed, which is not so when wind speed is 7 m/s at which NACA 0021 blade without cavity performs better. Again, NACA 0021 blade without cavity exhibits the highest performance of all the considered blade shapes, for which the highest power coefficient of 0.15 is achieved at a tip speed ratio of 1.25 and wind speed 6 m/s. At wind speed 7 m/s, the NACA 0021 blade rotor having outside cavity has a lower maximum power coefficient but wider operating range than that of NACA 0021 blade without cavity. CFD results show that H-Darrieus rotor having NACA 0021 blades at 30° azimuthal angle with circular cavity at 1/4th chord distance from its leading edge located at its inner surface, can generate higher lift force. However, circular cavity will be useful for starting performance of H-Darrieus rotor, which is not so for its dynamic performance, although operating range is improved.