Numerical Investigation of the Aerodynamics of Three

Blades Vertical Axis Wind Turbine having Movable Vanes

By
Kadhim Hussein Suffer

Prof. Dr. R. Usubamatov

Prof. Dr. G. A. Quadir
Dr. K. A. Ismail

University Malaysia Perlis (UniMAP)

 Contents

 Introduction.
 Literature Review.
 Objectives of the Present Study.
 Results and Discussion
 Conclusion.
 References.
 Introduction
• Renewable energy sources include wind energy, solar energy, tidal
energy, geothermal energy and biomass energy.

• Wind power is the most popular sources of alternative energy

because it is pollution free and available almost any time of the day.

• Wind turbine is a machine for converting the kinetic energy

available in the wind into mechanical energy.
• Vertical Axis Wind Turbine (VAWT) depends on the
drag force generated by the individual blades and
interactions between them in a rotating
configuration.

• In the present work, the analysis of the aerodynamics

for the Vane Type Vertical Axis Wind Turbine
(VVAWT) with different blades and vanes position is
carried out using computational fluid dynamics (CFD).
  Literature Review.

• Computational fluid dynamics (CFD) is a useful design tool for wind

power analysis. A large number of simulations can be performed, analyzed
and optimized without investing in physical construction of many turbines
with different geometrical configurations.
• Using CFD simulations, the torque and pressure on the rotor can be
predicted. These can then be used to predict the turbine’s power coefficient.
• There are several CFD methods in the literature to predict wind turbine
performance. I am reviewing some of the latest publications (2010-2013)
in this presentation.
 “CFD Analysis of a two- bucket savonius rotor for various
Gupta et al. [9]. overlap conditions”.
ASME 5th ASME 5th International Conference on energy sustainability, (2011).

• They attempted to study the flow

behaviour (static pressure and velocity
contours) of a rotating two-bucket
Savonius rotor using ANSYS software.
• Computational Fluid Dynamics, CFD
analysis was carried out to model the
complex flow physics around the
rotating rotor by using FLUENT. Figure 4: Pressure contour for 16.2% overlap.

• A two-dimensional computational un-

structured mesh (triangular mesh)
model was developed for the rotor in
Gambit 2.3.16 package and Fluent
6.3.26 software.

Figure 5: Velocity contour for 16.2% overlap.

Biadgo et al. [7]. “Numerical and Analytical Investigation of
Vertical Axis Wind Turbine”.
FME Transactions (2013).

• Numerical simulation is done for two-

dimensional unsteady flow around the
same VAWT model using Double
Multiple Streamtube (DMST) model
with CFD simulation.
• Both the CFD and DMST results have
shown minimum and/or negative
torque at lower tip speed ratios for the
modeled turbine.

Figure 1. Mesh near the rotor

 Kacprzak et al. [4]. “Numerical Investigation of Conventional and
Modified Savonius Wind Turbines”,

Renewable energy Journal. (2013)

 They analyzed numerically three

geometries of Savonius wind turbine
rotors
 ANSYS CFX were used for
simulation.
 They found all examined rotors
attain maximum power at a tip
speed ratio of 0.8 and Elliptical
Savonius turbine exhibits better
power characteristics than the
Classical one.
Figure 2. velocity Contour
 “Modeling and Numerical Simulation of a
Kadhim Suffer
Vertical Axis Wind Turbine Having Cavity
et al.
Vanes”.
Fifth International conference on Intelligent Systems, Modeling and Simulation .

• They simulate numerically the

newly designed cavity blades
vertical axis wind turbine using
CFD technique to investigate its
aerodynamic performance of the
turbine.
• The numerical simulations were
carried out for fixed blade
position representing its five
angular positions

Figure 3. Cavity three blades VAWT

 “Numerical Investigation of the Aerodynamics
Kadhim Suffer
of Three Blades Vertical Axis Wind Turbine
et al.
having Movable Vanes”.

• They simulate numerically the

newly designed cavity blades
vertical axis wind turbine using
CFD technique to investigate its
aerodynamic performance of the
turbine.
• The numerical simulations were
carried out for three blades
movable vanes position
representing its five angular
positions
Figure 4. Three blades Movable Vanes VAWT
 “Modeling and Numerical Simulation for the
Kadhim Suffer
Newly Designed Four Cavity Blades Vertical Axis
et al.
Wind Turbine”.
Applied Mechanics and Materials Vol. 554 (2014)

• They simulate numerically the

newly designed cavity blades
vertical axis wind turbine using
CFD technique to investigate its
aerodynamic performance of the
turbine.
• The numerical simulations were
carried out for fixed blade
position representing its four
angular positions

Figure 5. Cavity four blades VAWT

 • Objectives of the Present Study
• The main goal of this current research is to simulate
numerically the Four blades vane type vertical axis wind
turbine (VVAWT) with different blade shape under movable
vanes (open) conditions to investigate its aerodynamic
performance.
• The present turbine rotor design consists of four blades of
cavity shape each one having three vanes with angles 90°
between each blade.
• For numerical investigation, CFD software GAMBIT is used to
mesh the model. ANSYS FLUENT 14.5 software is used to
solve Naviar-Stokes equations using finite volume method.
• The Shear Stress Transport (SST) and k-ω turbulence models
are used in the analysis mainly because they are better than the
other turbulence models available in the literature [19- 21].

Figure 6. (a) Four blades vane type vertical axis wind turbine geometry, (b) top section view of the
computational domain with boundary conditions.
 • Results and Discussion
• The inlet was defined as a velocity inlet of 14 m/s inflow velocity while the
outlet was set as a pressure out let, keeping the pressure constant.
• The no slip shear condition was applied on the turbine blade, which sets the
relative velocity of blades to zero.

• The residual plot is shown

in Fig. 10, which has very
had small spikes in
turbulent kinetic energy
and specific dissipation
rate for the residual being
set as 10-5.

Figure 7. Scaled Residual.

• Fig.18. show the variation of predicted drag coefficient (Cd) with angle
blade position. It is evident from this figure that Cd is maximum at zero
blade angle, minimum at 60° blade angle and again maximum at 120 ° blade
angle. At 120° blade angle, actually the next blade takes the position of its
first blade because the angle between the turbine blades is 120°.

Figure 8. Relation between drag coefficient and first blade angular positions
Figure 9. Contour of static pressure distribution on four blades turbine surfaces.
Figure 10. Contour of static pressure distribution in and around turbine blade at different angular positions.
Figure 11. Contour of velocity distribution in and around turbine blade at different angular positions.
  Conclusions

• The Four dimensional numerical investigating of the newly designed of cavity

shape vertical axis wind turbine is carried out using CFD software GAMBIT with
ANSYS FLUENT.
• Shear Stress Transport (SST) k-ω turbulence model is used to predict the
aerodynamics of the turbine. The flow field was simulated numerically at a fixed
wind velocity.
• The predicted results show that:

1. The drag coefficient increases with the increase in turbine frontal area and
decreases with the decrease in its frontal area.
2. The maximum static pressure drop is found in the case of blade angular position
of 0° (2.547E+02 Pa) and minimum in the case when the blade angular position
is 45° (1.81E+01 Pa).
3. The velocity in the region of wind turbine´s rotation was much larger than that of
the upstream air flow.
4. The results are found to be similar in nature to those reported for VAWT having
different blade designs.
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