Univariate analysis of scaling effects on the aerodynamics of vertical axis wind turbines based on high-resolution numerical simulations: The Reynolds number effects

Abstract

The scale effect on aerodynamics determines, to some extent, the development trend and limitation of large vertical axis wind turbines (VAWTs). Among many factors, Reynolds number is an important one affected by such effects and is therefore often used as a criterion to distinguish between small-scale and large-scale wind turbines. In this paper, a dimensionless analysis was first conducted, and the results showed that scaling the wind turbine as a whole only led to a change in Reynolds number, while other key factors remained constant. Based on such understanding, a univariate analysis was then carried out to investigate the effect of Reynolds number variation due to scaling effects on the aerodynamic performance of VAWTs. In the study, a series of high-resolution numerical simulations were performed on a simplified single-bladed VAWT model. By directly scaling the model size, the operating Reynolds number of the wind turbine was made to vary in the range of 1×104 to 5×106 at a specific solidity and reduced frequency. The analysis shows that over the range of Reynolds number investigated, as the size of the wind turbine model increases, the flow separation nearby the blade decreases, the strength of the dynamic stall vortex becomes weaker, and the power coefficient of wind energy extraction generally tends to increase, thus indicating that large-scale wind turbine is generally beneficial aerodynamically. Specifically, when VAWTs operate in a Reynolds number ranging from 5×104 to 5×105, the power coefficient increases significantly as the size of wind turbine increases, while when operating in the range of 5×105∼5×106, the power coefficient still tends to increase, but in a decreasing increment ratio.