Simulation Verification and Optimization of a Vertical Axis Wind Turbine using CFD

Simulation Verification and Optimization of a Vertical Axis Wind Turbine using CFD

Kortleven, M.

Kenjeres, S. (mentor)
Heemink, A.W. (mentor)

Applied Sciences

ChemE/Chemical Engineering

Transport Phenomena

2016-07-27

In this research computational fluid dynamics (CFD) is used to model a vertical axis wind turbine. Well known turbulence models | i.e. the k-epsilon and k-omega SST model | are used and compared in their performance against each other and a set of experimental data. The formal research question is "What models are available for the simulation of vertical axis wind turbines and what considerations should be taken into account to most effectively obtain the power coefficient of those turbines?" The results show that the 2D k-epsilon simulations approximate the experimental data the closest, but that the difference between the simulations and the experiment in the k-omega model can be explained by the simulations being 2D and the experiment being 3D. To improve the results and verify that a 3D simulation indeed does produce better results, another study should be conducted in 3D when more computation power is readily available. As to what considerations should be taken into account: Meshing determines largely how long a simulation will take and to what accuracy a result can be calculated. The sliding mesh method should be used to decrease calculation time, so that the mesh does not need to be recalculated every time step. The orders of the different variables should be set to second order accuracy for the pressure p, the momentum, the turbulent kinetic energy k and the time derivative. The second order calculation of these variables results in a significant increase in accuracy of the simulations relative to simulations conducted in first order accuracy. For further improvement a research could be set up that involves both the experimental and the CFD part. That way the practical limitations to building a wind turbine could be modelled in the simulations, possibly resulting in even better synergy between the measurements and the simulations.

CFD
Simulation
Vertical Axis Wind Turbine
Optimization

http://resolver.tudelft.nl/uuid:b7ccbf27-52cf-4d50-ba64-9282aec248e4

Student theses

bachelor thesis

(c) 2016 Kortleven, M.