Study on improvement in aerodynamic performance of Vertical Axis Wind Turbine using Gurney flap

Abstract

Based on Spalart-Allmaras turbulence model, numerical simulation on NACA0015 airfoil with Gurney flap is carried out in this paper. Then the double Disks multiple stream-tube model is introduced to predict aerodynamic performance of VAWT of NACA0015 airfoil with Gurney flap. Results show that the Gurney flap can improve the lift coefficient of the airfoil and the height of the flap plays an important role. At the same time, output power of the wind turbine with Gurney flap increases compared with wind turbine without flap, and range of tip speed ratio to increase the wind power efficient broaden, which is useful for control and adjustment of wind turbine.