Structural Design and Stress Analysis of a Helical Vertical Axis Wind Turbine Blade

Abstract

In this study, a Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) model is designed to investigate the structural analysis of a helical Vertical Axis Wind Turbine (VAWT) blade which is using National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA) 0018 airfoil and numerical calculations are conducted by using Comsol Multiphysics. The main objective of this study is to determine that the strength of the turbine blade against bending caused by increased wind speeds is sufficient for the selected turbine blade material. This paper presents also an investigation of the effects of different wind speeds on the structure of a helical VAWT blade that is fixed to the support arm which is attached to the VAWT’s main shaft. In this study, a turbine blade which is placed in an air flow field is subjected to approaching strong wind with different velocities. The model solves for the flow around the blade and the structural displacement due to the fluid load. This investigation consists of two main parts: Solving for the fluid flow around the turbine blade with a free stream velocities of 1, 3, 5, 7, and 9 m/s, and Studying the deformation of the turbine blade caused by the fluid load. The risk of failure according to the von Mises criterion for the ductile materials such as aluminum is also investigated.