Numerical Study of the Aerodynamic Performance of a Helical Vertical Axis Wind Turbine

The Darrieus vertical axis wind turbine is one of the most promising wind energy converters for locations with rapid variations of wind direction, such as in the built environment. The aerodynamic characteristics of Darrieus vertical axis wind turbines (VAWTs) are affected by several geometrical parameters. Airfoil shape is one of the important factors that have not received enough attention in the past, compared to other parameters such as solidity, number of blades, chord length, rotor diameter, pitch angle, and aspect ratio. This paper presents a numerical analysis of the aerodynamics performance of a four-bladed helical Darrieus vertical axis wind turbine based on two commonly used airfoils, NACA ۰۰۱۵ and NACA ۰۰۱۸. The study analyzed the power, torque, and flow field characteristics of these two different airfoil designs. The results show that the power coefficient generally increases as the airfoil maximum thickness decreases beyond the optimum TSR of ۲.۰, while the CP of NACA ۰۰۱۸ is greater than the CP of NACA ۰۰۱۵ below the optimum TSR. To ensure the accuracy of the numerical simulation, the power coefficient calculated through CFD was verified against previous experimental results.

کلیدواژه ها:

Vertical axis wind turbine ، H-Darrieus ، NACA airfoil series ، Aerodynamic performance ، Computational fluid dynamics