Energy 201 (2020) 117659

Contents lists available at ScienceDirect

Energy
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/energy

Peak lift-to-drag ratio enhancement of the DU12W262 airfoil by

passive flow control and its impact on horizontal and vertical axis
wind turbines
Sercan Acarer
_
Department of Mechanical Engineering, Faculty of Engineering and Architecture, Izmir _
Katip Çelebi University, Izmir, Turkey

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: Recent studies have revealed that passive leading-edge slots on the pressure side has the potential to
Received 30 November 2019 increase both the peak and overall CL/CD of airfoils and may possess an advantage over active methods.
Received in revised form This work pursues application of such novel slots to the modern DU12W262 airfoil with a flexible slot-
14 April 2020
shape parametrization coupled with an optimizer to allow other slot concepts as well (suction side and
Accepted 16 April 2020
trailing edge slots). Experimentally validated Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) simulations are
Available online 23 April 2020
employed for this purpose. It is shown that 16% peak CL/CD improvement and overall a-CL/CD rise are
observed without any penalty in stall range. Implications of these are demonstrated on Horizontal- and
Keywords:
Passive flow control
Vertical-Axis Wind Turbines (HAWT and VAWT) by CFD. It is shown that, HAWT peak Cp of increases by
Slot 3.2%. Alternative BEM simulations predict this as high as 7.5%. For the VAWT, the peak Cp remains un-
Airfoil changed, however high tip-speed-ratio (l > 3, low wind speed) Cp increases between 3.5 and 9.6%
HAWT throughout the operational range. This may directly reflect into VAWT urban operation. In summary, the
VAWT concept is highly successful in improving peak and overall CL/CD of a modern airfoil, and this yields to
Wind turbine significant enhancements in both HAWTs and VAWTs.
© 2020 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction distances [10,11]. The number of journal citations to VAWT’s has

Wind energy is progressively becoming more imperative as
marked by increasing number of scientific and industrial ad-
vancements towards the beginning of 2000s [1]. Modern three-
bladed propeller-type turbines, also known as the horizontal axis
wind turbines (HAWT), are the industry standard for large scale
power production for decades due to superior efficiency, wider
operational range and reliability. Alternative crosswind-axis tur-
bines are generally classified as vertical axis wind turbines
(VAWT’s) and among these, the Darrieus-based concepts are the
most promising one [2]. Even if such turbines are known till 1930’s
[3] and early SANDIA Lab research of 1970s [4e6], they have been
recently rediscovered mainly due to their capability to capture
wind from any direction, suitable for urban areas and farm con-
figurations [7]. Moreover, such turbines are suitable for marine
environments and substantial work has been done to investigate
[8,9] and improve hydro VAWT turbines and farm arrangements by
analyzing several parameters such as different airfoils and turbine
E-mail address: sercan.acarer@ikcu.edu.tr.
increased from 14 in 2006 to 1600 in 2016 and the number of
published articles has increased by a similar factor [12].
Several flow control techniques apart from airfoil control are
recently successfully applied to HAWTs and VAWTs. Passive-pitch-
control blades either with deforming blades [13] or passive
mechanisms [14], external flow control casings [15], placing the
turbines near structures [16] or partially blocking specific regions of
turbines [17]. These alternative methods have been shown to
significantly improve peak efficiency or starting torque of the
baseline turbines. Nevertheless, the flow control methods on airfoil
level towards applications in HAWTs and VAWTs have been more
extensively studied due to its fundamental effect on the turbines.
Sasson and GreenBlatt [18] experimentally investigated single
and double-sided pulsed leading edge blowing on isolated
NACA0012 blades. Wind tunnel measurements of isolated airfoils in
Rec range 100k-480k with and without flow control were used to
estimate corresponding Cp values when placed on a H-Type Dar-
rieus turbine with solidity (s ¼ Nc/D) range 0.05e0.2. Blade
element momentum theory was used to compute turbine perfor-
mance and it was shown that, after accounting for the driving

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.energy.2020.117659
0360-5442/© 2020 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
2 S. Acarer / Energy 201 (2020) 117659
Nomenclature
a Airfoil angle of attack [degrees]
c Airfoil chord length [m]
cm Steady blowing momentum coefficient
Cp Turbine power coefficient
CT Airfoil torque coefficient
CL, CD Airfoil lift and drag coefficients, respectively
CFD Computational fluid dynamics
d Flap deflection angle in the slot blowing validation
case [degrees]
H Turbine height [m]
HAWT, VAWT Horizontal and vertical axis wind turbines,
respectively
l Turbine tip speed ratio (uR/U∞)
M Mach number based on Uref
power for the flow control, net efficiencies at high tip speed ratios
(l~4e4.5) do not increase, including the peak value. However, ef-
ficiencies at low l (<3.5, off-design operation) significantly in-
creases. Further experimental investigation by control with
dielectric barrier discharge (DBD) plasma actuators [19] on a two-
bladed H-Type Darrieus turbine with symmetrical NACA0015
blades, a high solidity of s ¼ 1.25 and low Rec (<212k) also shown to
produce ~40% efficiency improvement. The up-scaled and
controlled turbine (s ¼ 0.24 and similar Rec) also expected to pro-
vide similar improvements over the non-controlled one with DBD
plasma power only corresponding to 3.3% of the turbine power. In
parallel, Velasco et al. [20] and Zhu et al. [21] investigated zero net
mass flux actuators numerically for a three-bladed turbine with
similar findings regarding to applicability at low l. Another inter-
esting concept is co-flow jet, suction air from suction side trailing
edge and blowing it from suction side leading edge. Xu et al. [22]
investigated such case numerically for applicability towards
HAWTs. A significant rise in CL and drop in CD is observed at all
angle of attacks (a), increasing turbine power even when pumping
power is included.
Sagharichi et al. [23] studied blade pitch (set angle) effect on H-
type Darrieus turbines for different solidities to optimize local
blade angle of attack and minimize vortex shedding strength to aid
rear blades. It was shown that while active pitch control signifi-
cantly enhances turbine performance (more than 10%), passive
preset pitch has a smaller effect. Even for this case, Rezaeiha et al.
[24] have shown in a CFD framework that 5% increase in efficiency
is possible with the preset pitch, in line with the results of
Sagharichi et al.
However, active flow control methods, such as the ones cited
above, require additional complexity, weight, maintenance and
overall cost; therefore, may not be feasible industrially. Zhu et al.
[25] recently reviewed modern airfoil passive flow control methods
including leading edge micro cylinder, slots, Gurney flaps, thin plate
at trailing edge, passive movable flaps, leading edge serrations,
tilted blade, J-shaped airfoil, airfoil with cavity, variable droop
leading-edge, adaptive blades, leading edge slat, non-circular gap,
flow-deflecting airfoil and vortex generators. Among these, Wang
and Zhuang [26] numerically investigated sinusoidal leading edge
serrations in a two-bladed H-type Darrieus turbine with NACA0018
airfoils in order to create counter rotating vortices to cope with
dynamic stall. At the serration configuration of 0.0025c height and
0.33c or greater wavelength, turbine efficiencies are estimated to
increase at all l range, including around 20% increase in the
maximum efficiency point. Ebrahimi and Movahhedi [27]
m Dynamic viscosity [Pa.s]
N The number of blades
Rec Chord-based Reynolds number
R, D Turbine outer radius and diameter, respectively
Rg Ideal gas constant for air, 287 [J/(kg.K)]
s Solidity
q Setting angle for the HAWT blades or angular
position for the VAWT [degrees]
u Angular speed of the wind turbine [rad/s]
r Density [kg/m3]
T Torque [N.m]
Ts Static temperature [K]
u Velocity [m/s]
Uref Reference velocity, uR/2 for HAWT, uR for VAWT [m/
s]
U∞ Wind speed [m/s]
numerically investigated the effect of Gurney flap (or also called as
microtab) on a HAWT. This is a thin plate normal to camber, placed
near the trailing edge. It is shown that up to 17% power output
improvement is observed for turbines deployed in low-wind-speed
sites.
Another promising concept is the passive slots in blades. In a
2016 publication, towards application in HAWTs, Belamadi et al.
[28] numerically investigated leading edge slots opened to suction
side (upward slot) for S809 airfoil for Rec ¼ 1  106. Even if lift
improvements are observed, the drag penalty reduced lift-to-drag
ratio at a lower than around 10 . Therefore a-CL/CD slope unfa-
vorably reduces. A following publication in 2017 by Moshfeghi et al.
[29] investigating similar slots confirmed these findings. In a 2018
publication, Beyhaghi and Amano [30] both numerically and
experimentally studied leading edge slots in the thin NACA4412
airfoil, where exit is given near to trailing edge of the pressure side
(downward slot). For Rec ¼ 1.6  106, it was shown that, the lift of
the airfoil can be increased without any penalty in drag, which is
highly promising for both HAWTs and VAWTs. Another promising
research is published by Prince et al. [31] in 2017 for application
towards HAWTs, who experimentally studied skewed passive jet
blowing holes on NACA 23012C and NACA 632e217 airfoils to serve
as vortex generators at Rec range 0.27  106e1.3  106. Although no
CL/CD improvement at low a is observed, max CL increases towards
higher a and the drag bucket is widened.
Design optimization of wind turbines by computer simulations
of various fidelities are exercised for a long time. Fuglsang and
Madsen, in their 1999 work [32] considered multi-disciplinary
optimization of a HAWT by using gradient-based optimizers
coupled with preliminary design tools for structural durability,
aerodynamics and noise. By parametrizing the airfoil and turbine
parameters, power output, durability, noise, service life and reli-
ability are successfully optimized while satisfying the constraints.
Clifton-Smith and Wood [33] considered the self-starting capability
of HAWTs as well as design operation efficiency. By using a sto-
chastic genetic algorithm and blade element/momentum theory for
aerodynamic performance and starting time, power output is
increased by 10% while starting time decreases by a factor of 20.
Chan et al. [34] employed 2D CFD to evaluate the objective function
for performance optimization of a Savonius rotor by Genetic Al-
gorithm (GA) with 33% performance improvement. More recently,
Sessarego et al. [35] considered a whole HAWT geometry. By using
vortex particle method, a quick model capable of simulating flex-
ible rotors and a Design of Experiment (DoE), Neural Networks are
used to establish a metamodel required for the gradient-based
 S. Acarer / Energy 201 (2020) 117659
optimizer. At the end, turbine performance is increased by an
optimal geometric curve for the blades. Chehouri et al. [36] thor-
oughly reviewed the most critical objectives, issues and optimiza-
tion methods in the published literature for wind turbine
optimization, proving the successful and established use of design
optimization in wind turbine design.
1.1. Novelty and scope
Having reviewed some important active or passive flow control
studies for HAWTS and VAWTs, the leading edge serrations,
downward-directed slots, jet vortex generators and some other
passive methods seem to offer promising performance improve-
ments without additional complexity, energy input and cost. In this
study, the downward-directed (L-shaped) slot (channel) concept
preliminarily studied recently by Beyhaghi and Amano [30] for
isolated NACA4412 airfoil is elaborated. However, the slot param-
eters of interest are kept flexible to investigate different slot con-
cepts (upward slot, downwards slot, trailing edge blowing) as well.
Delft DU12W262 airfoil, originally optimized for VAWTs recently
[37], is selected as the baseline (non-slotted) airfoil profile for the
investigation due to its high performance and high relative thick-
ness (26.2% relative to the chord), favorable for structural durability.
Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) simulations are employed
as the principal tool and it is validated against recently published
experimental data of CL, CD of the same baseline Delft DU12W262
airfoil without slots. Moreover, experimental validation of the CFD
for slot blowing is also presented. Good agreements between the
experimental data and CFD are observed. Moreover, discretization
error analysis by Richardson Extrapolation and time step de-
pendency results are presented. The CFD simulations coupled to a
genetic algorithm optimizer and response surface (Kriging) is used
to obtain optimal slot parameters towards maximization of CL/CD
ratio at the linear region of the a-CL/CD curve. The implications of
these are demonstrated on representative HAWT and VAWT tur-
bines. Therefore, 3 separate CFD computational domains are
considered for the isolated airfoil (steady flow), HAWT (steady flow
with linearly moving reference frame motion and linear period-
icity) and VAWT (fully transient flow with moving mesh) models.
Moreover, Blade-Element-Momentum (BEM) Model is also
considered as a supplementary analysis for the HAWT efficiency
prediction at the Appendix.
In summary, the success of the novel slot concept in improving
peak and overall a-CL of a modern high-performance airfoil without
compromising stall range, and the demonstration of the perfor-
mance rise of such enhanced airfoils utilized both in HAWT and
VAWT turbines are sought in this work. The detailed simulations
specifically aim at providing reliable data, with a total computa-
tional time of more than 6 months in a modern workstation with 28
CPU processors. These efforts are expected to contribute to the al-
ternatives for simple passive flow control of wind turbines.
2. Computational modeling
2.1. The blade and the turbines considered
The modern Delft DU12W262 airfoil [37] selected for its high
performance and structural durability is presented in Fig. 1. It is a
tailored and cambered airfoil with a high relative thickness of
26.2%, which is at chord-wise position of 37%. The figure also pre-
sents the ‘slot’ or ‘channel’ concept [30] considered in this paper.
Apart from the isolated airfoil, the schematic and two-dimensional
representations of the horizontal (HAWT) and vertical (VAWT) axis
wind turbines that employ DU12W262 airfoil are presented in
Fig. 2. The non-dimensional design parameters for the considered
3
Fig. 1. Delft DU12W262 airfoil [37] and the ‘slot’ concept considered [30].
turbines are presented in Table 1. Here, the chord-based Reynolds
number, Mach number and solidities (s) for HAWT and VAWT are
defined by Equations (1)e(4), respectively.
r:Uref :c
Rec ¼ : (1)
m
Uref
M¼ pffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi: (2)
usound ¼ gRg T
N:c
sHAWT ¼   (3)
2:p: R=2
Halfspan
N:c
sVAWT ¼ (4)
2:R
The VAWT parameters are extracted from Ragni et al. [37]. The
turbine has 3 blades with a solidity of 0.1. Airfoil’s Rec is 1  106.
There is some compressibility since Mach number (M) is around
0.176. This is retained and modeled in the Computational Fluid
Dynamics (CFD) simulations for better consistency with the
experimental data provided by Ragni et al. [37] which also has a
similar M. The HAWT parameters are also similarly selected as
presented in Table 1, except for M, which is half of the VAWT value.
This is because the HAWT 2D mid-span has half of the turbine
rotational velocity while the 2D section of the VAWT blade has the
full rotational speed of the turbine (see Fig. 2). Therefore, both Rec
and M numbers could not be matched at the HAWT mid-span
(however, they match at the HAWT tip). However, since the Mach
number has a minor effect and HAWT and VAWT are investigated
independent of each other, this is not a concern. In order to match
Reynolds number for the HAWT, the chord is doubled. Also, the
HAWT solidity is 0.127, which is slightly higher than the VAWT
solidity due to definition difference.
2.2. The three separate computational domains
The 3 separate computational domains for the isolated airfoil
(steady flow), 2D HAWT (steady flow with linearly moving refer-
ence frame and linear periodicity) model and 2D VAWT model
(fully transient flow with moving mesh) are presented in Fig. 3. The
first two models are similar in terms of the domain shape, except
the HAWT model cross-wind direction (tangential to the rotational
direction, or vertical direction in the figure) are limited to the mid-
span pitch between two adjacent HAWT blades. Linear (trans-
lational) periodicity and upwards moving reference frame motion
is assumed to model multiple HAWT blades. This distance is higher
in the isolated airfoil model with frictionless end-walls to approach
an infinite domain. The VAWT model, on the other hand, is different
since it embodies 3 airfoils and a tower cylinder at the center inside
a rotating domain modeled by moving mesh approach. A non-
conformal interface is employed between the rotating domain
and the surrounding stationary domain. The guidelines described
4 S. Acarer / Energy 201 (2020) 117659
Fig. 2. HAWT and VAWT definition and their two-dimensional representations.
Table 1
The parameters for HAWT and VAWT considered in this study.
HAWT VAWT
No. of Blades (N) 3
Solidity (s) 0.127 0.100
Rec based on Uref 1  106
M based on Uref 0.088 0.176
by Balduzzi et al. [38] are considered when performing the VAWT
simulations.
ANSYS Mesher and Fluent 19.1 is used to create unstructured
mesh and numerically solve the flow fields. Even if the flow is low
speed, compressibility may not be completely neglected as Mach
number is close to 0.2. Moreover, the benchmark airfoil experi-
mental data of Ragni et al. [37] have a similar Mach number and no
correction was made for the compressibility effects. Therefore, ideal
gas model is used for consistency. A sensitivity analysis is con-
ducted that disregards compressibility. Lift was affected by
maximum 1.3%, and in many cases by 0.5% relative to the incom-
pressible model. Reynolds-Averaged Navier-Stokes (RANS) Equa-
tions are solved, where the Reynolds stresses are modeled by the
well-known Boussinesq turbulent viscosity assumption. In this
regard, Spalart-Allmaras (SA) model is compared with the SST
model and ultimately utilized to model fully-turbulent boundary
layer flows (to consider forced transition or surface with dust to
consider actual operation). Validity of those closure models are
presented in the next section. Energy equation is also solved for
temperature to obtain density. Cell-centered finite volume method
is employed to numerically solve the governing equations. For the
interpolation of advection terms, Second-Order Upwind Schemes
are employed for all the equations. Even if temperature effects are
small at around M ¼ 0.2, specific heat and viscosity are modeled as
temperature dependent for higher accuracy by polynomial and
Sutherlands formulation, respectively. Details of the numerics can
be found in Fluent Theory Guide [39]. Care is taken for convergence,
where scaled residuals defined by Eq. (5) (based on discretized
nodal equations) are expected to fall at worst below 105 and the
global quantities like lift, drag, torque are observed over a long
interval, and those are expected to converge within 0.1% and
without any statistical rise and fall trend. The isolated airfoil and
HAWT models assume steady-state formulations. However, the
latter employs moving reference frame to consider blade rotation, a
sufficient and standard approach since the change of the blade
angular position does not affect the relative flow field in the HAWT
model which considers all-together moving blade cascades. The
VAWT model, on the other hand, must capture the true transient
flow field since the changing blade angular positions affect relative
airfoil positions, therefore the flow field. In this regard, one rotation
is divided into 104 time steps. Therefore, one time step captures
0.036 VAWT rotation. Courant number (ui*Dt/Dxi, i ¼ 1, 2, 3) is
generally below 1, while maximum local value is less than 50. This
 S. Acarer / Energy 201 (2020) 117659 5

Fig. 3. The three separate computational domains for a) isolated airfoil (steady flow), b) HAWT (steady flow with upwards moving reference frame and linear periodicity), c) VAWT
(fully transient flow with moving mesh) models. D is 7.5 m.

is also a recommended value by Balduzzi et al. [38] and the effect of
time step and typical solution times are presented later.
P tower (for the domain presented in Fig. 3c) and the mesh around
aneighbour *4neighbour
R4 ¼ All cells
P ð4 ¼ ui ; T and turbulent termsÞ:
acenter *4center
All cells
(5)
Finite volume meshes of identical sizes are created around the
airfoils for the three separate computational domains presented in
Fig. 3a, b and c. That is, stream-wise length of the elements along
the airfoil walls is kept 1/420 of the chord length and 1/2500 of the
chord length inside the slot. The first node’s yþ is kept around 1,
and 55 quadriteral boundary layer elements grow at a rate of 1.1 in
the wall-normal direction, after which smooth transition with the
regular mesh is ensured. This mesh structure is presented in Fig. 4
particularly for the VAWT model with three airfoils and center
the airfoils are identical for the remaining two models (Fig. 3a and
b) as well.
2.3. CFD reliability and experimental validation
Fig. 5a presents discretization error estimate based on
Richardson extrapolation [40,41] for the isolated airfoil model,
Fig. 3a. However, since the mesh and Reynolds number (based on
relative velocity) are perfectly identical for the HAWT and VAWT
models of Fig. 3b and c, respectively, this discretization error
6 S. Acarer / Energy 201 (2020) 117659

Fig. 4. Computational grid particularly presented for the 3rd computational domain created for the VAWT model which has 3 airfoils and a tower cylinder at the center, as
presented in Fig. 3c. An identical mesh density is also shared by the 1st (isolated airfoil model) and 2nd (HAWT model) computational domains presented in Fig. 3a and b. They are
not repeated for convenience.

analysis also roughly valid for these two models as well. The
selected mesh density is the finest one in the figure (around
200*103 vol for the case with the baseline airfoil, without slot, and
double of this for the case including slots). It is evident that a very
fine mesh density is used such that discretization error is very low,
and further refinement does not change overall results. Even if the
Second Order Upwind scheme embedded in ANSYS Fluent [39] is
employed for the simulations, which is second order formally, it
seems that its actual accuracy is closer to first order. This indicates
the discretization error reduces with the first power of mesh
refinement (i.e. reducing the mesh size by half also reduces dis-
cretization error by half). Therefore, more finite volumes are
required compared to an actually second order accurate scheme for
the same high accuracy and low numerical diffusion. The difference
between formal and actual accuracies are expected and has been
reported in the literature previously [40,41]. In order to
 S. Acarer / Energy 201 (2020) 117659 7

Fig. 5. (a) Predicted mesh discretization error as a function of mesh size. (b) Azimuthal variation of torque generated by a single VAWT blade for two different time step values with
a mesh of around 1 millions as presented in Fig. 4 (c) Azimuthal variations of the maximum and surface-averaged first-layer grid y þ height on the airfoil surface. (d) Azimuthal
variations of the maximum and surface averaged CFL number on the rotating domain zone.
8 S. Acarer / Energy 201 (2020) 117659

compensate for this, conservatively high number of volumes are

employed. Therefore low discretization errors are observed with
the number of volumes employed, as indicated in Fig. 5a.
Fig. 5b demonstrates the effect of time step on the VAWT model
(see Figs. 3c and 4), which has a mesh size of around 1 million based
on the same density with the isolated airfoil model. Two simula-
tions with current time step (104 time steps per revolution) and half
of the time step (2*104 time steps per revolution) are compared
when statistically stable VAWT operations are ensured. (average
torques between successive revolutions are similar within 1% dif-
ference). Azimuthal variations of the torques generated by single
VAWT blades for the two cases shows that the selected time step is
an appropriate choice. For convergence from the initialization, 30
revolutions are required for the VAWT so that average torque
changes much less than 1%. Fig. 5c presents maximum and surface-
averaged y þ variations over a VAWT rotation for the first-layer grid
height over a single airfoil surface. It is evident that, even the
maximum y þ value does not exceed 0.7, while the surface averaged
y þ does not exceed 0.2, both of which are well below yþ<1.
Therefore, considering a growth rate of 1.1 for the boundary layer
mesh, turbulent boundary layer can expected to be well-resolved.
The steady simulations of isolated airfoil and 2D HAWT simula-
tions have identical values and the same conclusions can be made.
Finally, Fig. 5d presents the maximum and average CFL values on
the rotating domain zone as a function of VAWT azimuthal position Fig. 6. Comparison of CFD and experimental data of DU12W262 [37] and NACA0018
q. Even if the local peak CFL goes as high as around 30, average CFL [42] at Re ¼ 1  106, (a) a-CL, (b) a-CD.
values are well-below 1 in most of the regions. These values are
assessed to be acceptable for VAWT simulations such that a peak
CFL of around 40 is ‘definitely’ acceptable for limited number of
FL;D
cells in the literature [38]. CFL condition is irrelevant for the iso- CL;D ¼ (6)
1:r:U 2
lated airfoil and HAWT simulations since steady-state simulations 2 relative :c:L
are carried out for these analyses.
Intel Xeon E5 2680 v4 CPU is employed in parallel mode (up to
28 cores) for calculations. Typical time for steady state calculations
is around 0.5e1 h. It is more than a week for transient calculations 2.3.1. Validation of the passive flow control by active slot blowing
due to the need to wait for statistically stable operation and flow control experiments
convergence at each time step. These long times are due to fine The CFD methodologies are already validated against experi-
mesh structure, low time step values and low iteration under- mental data for airfoils without flow control. This sub-section aims
relaxation factors. In total, simulations in this study lasted around to validate the flow control feature embedded to an airfoil. For this,
6 months. Therefore special attention is given to provide reliable the experimental data of Seifert et al. [45] is used. In this experi-
CFD data. ment, the last 25% chord of NACA0012 airfoil is considered as a
Fig. 6 compares lift and drag coefficients of DU12W262 airfoil, deflectable flap. Blowing occurs at the upper side of the flap hinge.
defined by Equation (6), predicted by CFD and experimental data The geometry and the computational mesh are presented in Fig. 7.
[37]. Moreover, the same comparison is also included for NACA0018 Only the steady blowing results are considered at deflection angle
airfoil data [42]. The SA model seem to predict the turbulent case (d) of 20 at cm of 0.1, defined by Eq. (7):
denoted by “forced transition” decently well, though there is some
over-estimation of CL and underestimation of CD at high a. How-  w  u 2
jet
cm ¼ 2 slot (7)
ever, the discrepancies are probably due to way in which forced c U∞
transition is created in the experimental data. Since zigzag tapes
near the leading edge (at 2% chord) are used in the experiments, the where wslot is the slot height. In the experiments, physically, the
evolution of turbulence is slightly different than the CFD model, in chord is 365 mm. Slot height is 1.5 mm. For the tested Rec of
which there is no zigzag tapes but a fully turbulent boundary layer 1.5  105, the wind speed is around 6 m/s. Therefore, the blowing
is assumed. Therefore the results predicted by the SA model is jet velocity is 20.9 m/s.
assessed to be realistic in predicting fully-turbulent flow around the Fig. 8 presents comparison of the experimental data [45] and
airfoil and it corresponds to a slightly different experimental con- CFD for lift augmentation of slot blowing. The SA model, which is
dition. The SST model is slightly less successful than the SA model already selected as the turbulence model, is considered. Even if
in the forced transition case predictions. Moreover, both of these transitional effects are critical at the considered low Rec, the large
fully turbulent models (SA and SST baseline) are reported to be the flap deflection makes the rear turbulent separated flow the domi-
most common methods for predicting performance of flow- nant factor to determine the characteristics of the airfoil (rather
controlled lift surfaces [43], where the success of the SA model than the transition on the airfoil). The augmentation of lift coeffi-
for a flow controlled airfoil is demonstrated in Ref. [44] explicitly. cient is accurately captured by the SA model, increasing credibility
Together with the flow control experimental validation of the next of the model suitable for turbulent airfoils with flow control. The
sub-section, SA model is assessed to be justified for the purpose of CFD exhibit some deviation at high a, however this may be ex-
this work. pected to be lower for a slotted DU12W262 airfoil, which is
considered in this study. This is because the large deflection angle
 S. Acarer / Energy 201 (2020) 117659
Fig. 7. The geometry and computational grid for the slot blowing CFD validation.
Fig. 8. Comparison of experimental data [45] and CFD for lift augmentation of slot
blowing.
of the thin and flapped NACA0012 airfoil, which is much more
challenging to simulate at high a as compared to the DU12W262. In
summary, the selected SA model, together with the prior
9
considerations are accurate to simulate slot blowing (not matter
active or passive).
3. Results and discussions
3.1. Slot optimization and airfoil performance
The parametrization of the slot geometry on the DU12W262
airfoil is presented in Fig. 9. The aim of using a piecewise linear slot
shape is to demonstrate the positive effect of the slot in a funda-
mental way, therefore a basic geometry is selected. Moreover, this
may have advantages in manufacturing simplicity for some type of
blades (e.g. by drilling of a wooden blade). A total of 5 parameters
are used: one for vertical distance between the leading edge and
slot suction (h), the chord-wise length, between the leading edge
and slot bending position (L), slot inlet and exit angles (b1 and b2,
resp.) and the slot width (w). The upper and lower bounds of the
parameters are kept wide (Table 2) in order to consider a broad
spectrum of geometries. Therefore, the considered geometries also
allow upper-directed (suction side) slot in addition to the down-
wards directed (pressure-side) slots and there is kept a possibility
for the optimizer to create also a suction side slot. ANSYS Design-
Xplorer optimization software is employed for the optimization
coupled with the isolated airfoil CFD model discussed in the pre-
vious section. A Design of Experiments (DoE) with around total
1007 CFD simulations according to 27 Central Composite Design
(CCD) [46,47] plus a total of 980 additional refinement points
10 S. Acarer / Energy 201 (2020) 117659

Fig. 9. Parameters considered for slot optimization.

Table 2 downwards directed slot effectively becomes a leading edge

The upper and lower bounds of the parametrization and the final optimized slot blowing slot.
parameters.
The ‘local’ sensitivities of CD, CL and CL/CD on the 5 design pa-
Lower Bound Upper Bound Optimized rameters are presented in Fig. 10 at the optimized point. It shows
b1 3 15 10.00 degrees the norm of the partial derivatives of the chosen objective (CD, CL
b2 3 25 16.80 degrees and CL/CD) with respect to the 5 parameters. It is evident that there
L 0.24 0.8 0.48 times the chord are no trivial parameters, and all the parameters have significant
h 1.4E-02 3.2E-02 1.6E-02 times the chord
influences on the objective function CL/CD and the observed out-
w 2.0E-03 8.0E-03 5.0E-03 times the chord
puts CD and CL. However, the parameter b1 has the lowest influence
on CL and CL/CD. The parameter b2, on the other hand, has a much
higher impact on these. All the parameters positively influence CL
(added by stages during the full meta-modeling process) is carried
and CL/CD, however this is reverse, except the parameter b1, for CD
out for the 5 parameters. Kriging [47] is used for the principle
and all the parameters are inversely affecting CD. Another major
metamodeling. However, several response surface methods are also
parameter is the width (parameter w), whose increase positively
tried (Neural Networks, ANSYS Automatic Genetic Aggregation
affects CL and CL/CD and negatively (favorable for the current case)
Model) during iterative trials based on fitness accuracy and validity
affects CD. The relatively low standard deviation between the in-
of the optimal geometries that it proposes. For the Kriging, coeffi-
fluences of each of the 5 parameters also verify that correct pa-
cient of determination is larger than 0.99. However, even if Kriging
rameters are chosen for the optimization.
may detect extremes better, other alternative meta-models had
Fig. 11 compares airfoils without slot and with the optimized
coefficient of determination typically in between 0.9 and 0.95, but
slot. CL, CD and CL/CD as a function of angle of attack (a) are
these smoother meta-models better predict overall behavior of the
compared between 20 <a < 20 . Fig. 12 charts the corresponding
design space, but having potential to disregard extremes. Therefore,
percent improvements. These figures clearly demonstrate the
a hybrid (iterative try and error) approach is attempted to obtain
significantly improvement with the optimized slot at positive a.
the most promising model. Number of refinement points are kept
Specifically, CL increases at all positive a investigated (0 <a < 20 )
higher than required (for establishing an accurate meta-model
without drag increase up to around a~10e15 . At a ¼ 10 , increase
yielding to the final optimum) for the sake of conservativeness.
in CL is more than 10%. These enhancements rises more than 50%
Nevertheless, the optimization is not the principal focus and chal-
towards a ¼ 0. It reduces to around 3e5% at a ¼ 20 . The
lenging part of this work, and the process at the end yielded to a
slot design, which is substantially better performing than the
baseline airfoil. Therefore, this work does not claim to obtain the
exact global optimum (but thought by the author to be close to the
global optimum), however a substantially improved slot will later
be shown to bring benefits in airfoil CL/CD and HAWT and VAWT Cp
values. Even if the novel downwards directed slots are considered,
the parametrization is flexible enough to allow also generation of
upwards directed traditional slots.
A general Multi-Objective Genetic algorithm (MOGA) employed
in ANSYS Design Xplorer Software is employed, however since only
one objective is considered, its single objective functionality is
employed. This algorithm is a variant of the well-known NSGA-II
(Non-dominated Sorted Genetic Algorithm-II) based on controlled
elitism concepts [48]. The single objective is to maximize CL/CD
ratio of the airfoil at 5 angle of attack (a) which is the highest CL/CD
point of the airfoil in order to improve the linear region of the a-CL
or a-CL/CD curves (low a, see Fig. 6) of the airfoil. Otherwise, an
optimal design at high a (stall or post stall) just improves CL/CD in
that region, with degradation in the linear region. This final opti-
mized parameter set is presented in Table 2 in non-dimensional
form and this final shape is also the one presented in Fig. 9. It is
evident that the optimizer converged to a slot shape where the
Fig. 10. Input parameter sensitivities for the three output parameters.
 S. Acarer / Energy 201 (2020) 117659
Fig. 11. Comparison of the airfoil CL, CD and CL/CD (a) without slot, (b) with the optimized slot.
corresponding peak CL/CD at a ¼ 5 rises from 28.31 to 32.97, a
16.5% improvement, with the slot. This enhancement rise up to
around 45% and drop to around or less than 5% towards a ¼ 20 .
These significant enhancements at positive a are reversed for the
negative a values. And the slot begins to detriment CL/CD. This is
expected since the slot improvement is intentionally designed for
positive a values, which is the desired region since this is almost
always encountered in HAWTs and in the most efficient upwind or
front positions of the blades of VAWTs.
Fig. 13a presents normalized velocity contours of the airfoils
without slot and with the optimized slot. at maximum CL/CD con-
ditions (a ¼ 5 ). Since the optimizer yielded to a slot which opens to
trailing edge of the airfoil (even if the parametrization allows both
pressure side and suction side slots), it indicates this is effectively a
trailing edge blowing slot. Therefore, flow fields at suction (upper)
sides do not change significantly. However, as seen from the con-
tours, the slots increase flow deflections towards downwash for the
both cases, which causes a deceleration and higher pressure at the
pressure side. This is linked with a second mechanism of an addi-
tional lift loading inside the slot walls, which is upwards and
contributes to the lift due to the bending. The drag increase due to
slot walls is dominated by the lift enhancement described by the
two mechanisms at a < 10 as well as the maximum CL/CD condi-
tions. The downwash velocity component is better visualized in
Fig. 13b, where a clear downwash velocity increase near the exit of
the slot (trailing edge) is observed, explaining the physics behind
the improvement.
11
3.2. HAWT turbine
The implications of the airfoil performance improvement on a
HAWT are simulated in two ways. The principal way is 2D CFD and
the second alternative way is with Blade Element Momentum
(BEM) simulations with QBlade software. The latter is presented in
the appendix as a supplementary material. The former is presented
here.
The 2D CFD simulations are carried out at mid-span cut of the
blades, as given by Figs. 2 and 3b and as discussed in Section 2.2.
This model in Fig. 3b is representative of the HAWT in its raw form,
except the induction effect, which is the slow-down of the wind as
it approaches the turbine. To compensate for this, induction models
employed in the BEM model are employed to estimate the final
slowed-down wind velocity by the relation [49]:
Uinduced ¼ U∞ ð1  aÞ (8)
where ‘a’ is the induction factor defined in Eq. (9):
!1
4sin2 4
a¼ þ1 : (9)
sCaxial
In this equation, s is the mid-span solidity already defined in Eq.
(3) and Caxial is the axial force coefficient defined by Eq. (10). There,
Uinduced is used as a reference velocity because it is the physical axial
velocity approaching to the turbine and the axial component of the
12
Fig. 12. Comparison of CL/CD and CL percent improvements at 20 < a < 20 due to the
use of the optimized slot over the base airfoil without any slot.
force creates the induction. The angle 4 is the angle between the
relative wind and tangential direction, as shown in Fig. 14, along
with HAWT velocity vectors. As evident from the figure, the blade
Fig. 13. Normalized velocity contours of the airfoils without slot and with the optimized slot at maximum CL/CD condition (a ¼ 5 ). a) Normalized velocity magnitude, b)
Normalized downwash velocity.
S. Acarer / Energy 201 (2020) 117659
setting angle q, the angle between the chord line and the axial di-
rection, should be large for optimal (around 5 ) a, therefore for the
required lift generation.
Faxial
Caxial ¼ : (10)
1 rU 2
:c:L
2 induced
The success and convergent behavior of the iterative induction
factor (a) model is presented in Fig. 15 for a typical operation at
q ¼ 82 and l ¼ 6, which is later shown to be peak Cp condition for
the HAWT. Initially, inlet (induced) velocity is assumed equal to the
wind velocity. Once axial drag resistances are taken into account in
the models given by Eqs. (8)e(10), induced velocities start to drop
relative to the wind velocity. Finally, the velocity induction ‘1-a’
converges typically after 4 or 5 iterations. As expected, the
enhanced airfoil with slot, which has higher CL/CD, creates a higher
resistance to the wind, and therefore slower wind is faced by a
HAWT using these airfoils. Therefore, part of the advantage of the
enhanced airfoil is lost due to this effect, an indication for success of
the induction model to capture a physical phenomenon. As a result,
the final HAWT performances (l-Cp curves) are presented in Fig. 16
for q ¼ 79.5, 82 and 84.5 expected to be valid for forced transition
(turbulent flow) conditions expected in real operation. The optimal
setting angle q is found to be 82 , where highest Cp value is ob-
tained. It is shown that peak Cp of the HAWT increases by 3.2% and
enhancements up to 5.5% are observed for other HAWT operational
conditions presented in Fig. 16. In general, the enhanced slotted
airfoil improves HAWT performance throughout the most of the
operational conditions.
Comparing q ¼ 82 results with the BEM simulations (without
3D correction) presented in the appendix show a rather good
matching. The improvement predicted in the proposed 2D model is
lower than the improvement predicted by the BEM model as a
result of using slotted airfoils. However, predicted trends are
similar. Therefore, the proposed 2D HAWT CFD method may be
employed for performance prediction of HAWTs.
 S. Acarer / Energy 201 (2020) 117659
Fig. 14. Velocity vectors and main definitions employed in rhe HAWT model.
3.3. VAWT turbine
The outcomes of the transient VAWT simulations described in
Section 2 are presented in this sub section. The l-Cp curves both for
the turbines employing baseline and the enhanced slotted blades
are presented in Fig. 17 for expected forced transition (turbulent
flow) conditions, expected for actual operations. The slot enhances
Cp at moderate and high l values (l > 3) by 3.5% at l ¼ 3.5, 3.7% at
l ¼ 4 and 9.6% at l ¼ 5. However, the performance reduces at lower
l values. The main reason for this drop is the worsened
13
Fig. 15. The convergence of induction for q ¼ 82 and l ¼ 6.
performance at negative angle of attacks. VAWT blades will expe-
rience higher angle-of-attack (positive at the upwind, negative at
the downwind side) at low l. Since CL/CD drops at the negative
angle-of-attack region with the slot (as the slot improves the pos-
itive side of angle-of-attack CL/CD), turbine performance inherently
drops at low l. Peak Cp remains virtually unchanged (l ¼ 3 for the
baseline airfoil turbine and l~3.25 for the slotted airfoil turbine). A
high l operation means low wind speeds or high rotational speeds.
This is expected to be favorable for actual operation of a lift-based
VAWT especially in urban where turbulent and low-speed wind
conditions are encountered. Therefore these notable improvements
may be expected to reflect directly to typical operating points of a
VAWT in urban.
Fig. 18 compares azimuthal evolution of the Torque Coefficient
(CT) defined in Equation (11) for two VAWTs employing the baseline
and the enhanced slotted airfoils. The positive a region for the
airfoils is in the upwind side of the VAWT (0 < q < 180 ). It is
evident that CL/CD improvement in the positive a values directly
reflects in torque improvement in this side. However, since the
slotted airfoil has worse CL/CD at negative a region (see Figs. 11 and
12), the VAWT performance with the slotted airfoil degrades in the
downwind side of the VAWT (180 < q < 360 ). Most notably, as
Fig. 18a demonstrates, at low l of 2.5, even if the slotted airfoil
outperforms the baseline airfoil in the upwind direction, a signifi-
cant reverse effect occurs in the downwind side. This explains why
Cp is lower at low l. However, this is a favorable trade-off at most
operating points since most of the power is typically produced in
the upwind side, where undisturbed wind comes. Therefore the
positive effects dominate the negative effects for l>~3, encoun-
tered in low wind speeds or high rotational speeds, which is a
favorable region of operation as discussed in the above paragraph.
T
CT ¼ (11)
1 rðuRÞ2 :c:L:R
2
Finally, normalized velocity fields are compared in Fig. 19 for the
case presented in Fig. 18d (l ¼ 4). As discussed for the isolated
airfoil performances (Section 3.1), a major change in the flow field
with the slotted airfoil is not observed due to its effective nature of
being a trailing edge blowing. Instead, the slot increases the lift by
additional internal surfaces, and this manifests itself in velocity
drop/pressure rise on the pressure side in the turbine upwind side
(positive a for the airfoils). In the downwind side (negative a for the
14 S. Acarer / Energy 201 (2020) 117659

Fig. 16. The HAWT l-Cp curves and the corresponding percent improvements for the baseline and enhanced slotted airfoils at q ¼ 79.5, 82 and 84.5 .

airfoils), pressure side acts as a suction side, and a stronger flow

separation is observed by the negative effect of the slot at this side
of the turbine. Moreover, the suction side acceleration (therefore
pressure drop) at the pressure side (acting as a suction side)
weakens. However, as the l-Cp curve demonstrates, the positive
effects on the turbine upwind side dominates these negative
effects.

4. Conclusions

This work is built on the passive flow technique recently

Fig. 17. The VAWT l-Cp curves and the corresponding percent improvements for the
baseline and enhanced slotted airfoils.
introduced by Beyhaghi and Amano [30] for an isolated thin airfoil
in their paper but elaborates and extends it by exploring conceptual
limits with slot shape optimization (including also allowance to the
suction side and trailing edge slots). The impacts of using such
airfoils both on Horizontal and Vertical Axis Wind Turbines (HAWT
and VAWT, respectively) are analyzed. In the considered pressure-
side slot concept, instead of opening the passive slots to the more
critical suction side to deal with post-stall (generally at the expense
of deteriorating pre-stall performance), the slot is opened to the
less critical pressure side from the leading edge by a L-shape. The
modern Delft DU12W262 airfoil with high CL/CD ratio and high
thickness is considered as a baseline in this work for its structural
durability and performance. Shape optimization is executed on this
airfoil to maximize the peak and overall CL/CD and CL at the linear
region. Such an approach is unique for a typical passive flow
technique since most (if not the all, such as leading edge tubercles)
of the passive control techniques improve only post-stall perfor-
mance. Forced transition (surface with some roughness and fully
turbulent flow) case is considered to mimic realistic operational
conditions. The utilized Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD)
 S. Acarer / Energy 201 (2020) 117659 15

Fig. 18. Comparative azimuthal evolution of the torque coefficient (CT) at l ¼ 2.5, 3, 3.5, 4 and 5 of a single blade of two VAWTs employing the baseline and the enhanced slotted
airfoils.

simulations are validated against recently published experimental
data of the same baseline Delft DU12W262 airfoil without slots.
Moreover, experimental validation of the CFD for slot blowing also
accomplished with success. Finally, analyses on the discretization
error and time step dependency are presented.
As a result of the efforts, 16.5% peak CL/CD improvements over
the baseline airfoils are observed as a result of employing enhanced
slots. Moreover, CL/CD are also improved at low angle of attacks (a),
up to 45%. CL alone improvements are even higher than these
values. Therefore, lift characteristics in the linear region signifi-
cantly augmented. Impacts of these improvements on representa-
tive HAWT and VAWT turbines are also investigated in two-
dimensions as an integral and novel part of this work. For the
HAWT turbine, a 2D CFD method is proposed. In this model, an
16 S. Acarer / Energy 201 (2020) 117659
Fig. 19. Comparative azimuthal evolution of normalized velocity field at l ¼ 4 for two VAWTs employing the baseline and the enhanced slotted airfoils.
induction model adapted to the CFD from BEM theory is employed
for the mid-span computations of the HAWT in order to model the
slow-down of the wind at the inlet, a 3D effect, and prevent un-
realistically high (>0.59) Cp values. Also blade setting angle is varied
to explore the optimal HAWT operating condition. Also, a BEM
model (Open Source QBlade software) using predicted airfoil
characteristics is employed as an alternative means to estimate
HAWT characteristics in the Appendix.
As a result of these efforts, it is shown that, by using the
enhanced slotted airfoils, peak Cp of the HAWT increases by around
3.2% (7.5% in the BEM model predictions presented in the Appen-
dix). Therefore, even if the airfoil’s CL/CD improvement is higher
than those values, the flow induction limits the net benefit gained
by the airfoil improvement. For the VAWT, the peak Cp remains
unchanged, however high tip-speed-ratio (l > 3) Cp values increase
between 3.5 and 9.6% throughout the VAWT operational range.
Since high l typically occurs for low wind speeds, such an
enhancement may be expected to directly reflect into VAWT per-
formance in urban. This is because urban is characterized by tur-
bulent and variable-direction low-speed wind conditions [24]. In
summary, the concept is highly successful in improving lift slope
and peak CL/CD of a modern high-performance airfoil, and the
utilization of such enhanced airfoils also yields to significant en-
hancements in both HAWT and VAWT performances.
APPENDIX. : SUPPLEMENTRAY BLADE ELEMENT MOMENTUM
(BEM) SIMULATIONS FOR HAWT
As a supplementary to the HAWT CFD analyses presented in
Section 3.2, Blade Element Momentum (BEM) analyses are also
carried out in open QBlade software [49-51] by using airfoil char-
acteristics presented in Figure 11. This software is selected due to its
common and established use. Moreover, BEM models are generally
assessed to be reliable tools for HAWT simulations [51]. A turbine
satisfying Table 1 specifications is used; physically, it is a 7.5m
diameter turbine with 50cm blade chord. The results are presented
in Fig. 20. The trends are similar with the CFD trends presented in
Section 3.2. The baseline and slotted airfoils are compared both for
the baseline BEM model, and the BEM model corrected for 3D (end,
hub) effects. In both scenarios, the slotted airfoil increases peak Cp
of the HAWT by around 7.5%. This is slightly less than half of the
peak CL/CD improvement of the isolated airfoil. The enhancement in
isolated airfoils is not completely reflected to HAWT because, as
expected, the stronger turbine using the improved slotted airfoil
creates more resistance to the oncoming wind and velocity slow-
down (induction) upstream of the turbine occurs. As well as the
peak Cp, overall Cp of the turbine significantly increases as a result of
using slotted airfoils.
 S. Acarer / Energy 201 (2020) 117659 17

Fig. 20. Blade Element Momentum (BEM) calculations with the open QBlade software.

References flow control around vertical Axis marine turbine. IOP Conf Ser Earth Environ
Sci 2012;15:1e8.
€derholm P. Wind energy and green economy in europe: [16] Tanino T, Nakao S, Uebayashi G. Improving ambient wind environments of a
[1] Lindman A, So
cross-flow wind turbine near a structure by using an inlet Guide structure and
measuring policy-induced innovation using patent data. Appl Energy
a flow deflector. J Therm Sci 2005;14(3):242e8.
2016;179:1351e9.
[17] Patel V, Eldho T, Prabhu S. Performance enhancement of a Darrieus hydro-
[2] Paraschivoiu I. Wind turbine design: with emphasis on Darrieus concept.
kinetic turbine with the blocking of a specific flow region for optimum use of
Canada: Polytechnic International Press; 2002.
hydropower. Renew Energy 2019;135:1144e56.
[3] Darrieus G. Turbine having its rotating shaft transverse to the flow of the
[18] Sasson B, Greenblatt D. Effect of leading-edge slot blowing on a vertical Axis
current. Patent U.S. Patent 08 December 1931;1:835. 018.
wind turbine. AIAA J 2011;49(9):1932e42.
[4] Banas ve J, Sullivan W. «Sandia vertical-Axis wind turbine program technical
[19] Greenblatt D, Schulman M, Harav A. Vertical Axis wind turbine performance
quarterly report. » Sandia Laboratuaries, U.S.A.; 1976.
enhancement using plasma actuators. Renew Energy 2012;37:345e54.
[5] Worstell M. «Aerodynamic performance of the 17 meter diameter Darrieus
[20] Velasco D, Mejia O, Lain S. Numerical simulations of active flow control with
wind turbine,» sandia laboratuaries. U.S.A.; 1978.
synthetic jets in a Darrieus turbine. Renew Energy 2017;113:129e40.
[6] Sheldalh R, Feltz P Klimas ve L. «Aerodynamic performance of a 5-metre-
[21] Zhu H, Hao W, Li C, Ding Q. Simulation on flow control strategy of synthetic jet
diameter Darrieus turbine with extruded aluminum NACA-0015 blades. »
in an vertical Axis wind turbine. Aero Sci Technol 2018;77:439e48.
Sandia Laboratuaries, U.S.A.; 1980.
[22] Xu H, Qiao C, Ye Z. Dynamic stall control on the wind turbine airfoil via a Co-
[7] Dabiri J. Potential order-of-magnitude enhancement of wind farm power
flow jet. Energies 2016;9(6):1e25.
density via counter-rotating vertical-Axis wind turbine arrays. J Renew Sus-
[23] Sagharichi A, Zamani M, Ghasemi A. Effect of solidity on the performance of
tain Energy 2011;3:043104.
variable-pitch vertical Axis wind turbine. Energy 2018;161:753e75.
[8] Han S, Park J, Lee K, Park W, Yi J. Evaluation of vertical Axis turbine charac-
[24] Rezaeiha A, Kalkman I, Blocken B. Effect of pitch angle on power performance
teristics for tidal current powerplant based on in ditu experiment. Ocean Eng
and aerodynamics of a vertical Axis wind turbine. Appl Energy 2017;197:
2013;65:83e9.
132e50.
[9] Birjandi A, Woods J, Bibeau E. Investigation of macro-turbulent flow structures
[25] Zhu H, Hao W, Li C, Ding Q, Wu B. A critical study on passive flow control
interaction with a vertical hydrokinetic river turbine. Renew Energy 2012;48:
techniques for straight-bladed vertical Axis wind turbine. Energy 2018;165:
183e92.
12e25.
[10] Patel V, Eldho T, Prabhu S. Experimental investigations on Darrieus straight
[26] Wang Z, Zhuang M. Leading-edge serrations for performance improvement on
blade turbine for tidal current application and parametric optimization for
a vertical-Axis wind turbine at low tip-speed-ratios. Appl Energy 2017;208:
hydro farm arrangement. International Journal of Marine Energy 2017;17:
1184e97.
110e35.
[27] Ebrahimi A, Movahhedi M. Wind turbine power improvement utilizing pas-
[11] Riglin J, Daskiran C, Jonas J, Schleicher W. Hydrokinetic turbine array char-
sive flow control with microtab. Energy 2018;150:575e82.
acteristics for river applications and spatially restricted flows. Renew Energy
[28] Belamadi R, Djemili A, Ilinca A, Mdouki R. Aerodynamic performance analysis
2016;97:274e83.
of slotted airfoils for application to wind turbine blades. J Wind Eng Ind Aerod
[12] Hui I, Cain B, Dabiri J. Public receptiveness of vertical Axis wind turbines.
2016;151:79e99.
Energy Pol 2018;112:258e71.
[29] Moshfeghi M, Shams S, Hur N. Aerodynamic performance enhancement
[13] Motley M, Barber R. Passive control of marine hydrokinetic turbine blades.
analysis of horizontal Axis wind turbines using a passive flow control method
Compos Struct 2014;110:133e9.
via split blade. J Wind Eng Ind Aerod 2017;167:148e59.
[14] Lazauskas L, Kirke B. Modeling passive variable pitch cross flow hydrokinetic
[30] Beyhaghi S, Amano R. A parametric study on leading-edge slots used on wind
turbines to maximize performance and smooth operation. Renew Energy
turbine airfoils at various angles of attack. J Wind Eng Ind Aerod 2018;175:
2012;45:41e50.
43e52.
[15] Coşoiu C, Georgescu A, Degeratu M, Haşegan L, Hlevca D. Device for passive
18 S. Acarer / Energy 201 (2020) 117659
[31] Prince S, Badalamenti C, Regas C. The application of passive air jet vortex-
generators to stall suppression on wind turbine blades. Wind Energy
2017;20:109e23.
[32] Fuglsang P, Madsen H. Optimization method for wind turbine rotors. J Wind
Eng Ind Aerod 1999;80(1e2):191e206.
[33] Clifton-Smith M, Wood D. Further dual purpose evolutionary optimization of
small wind turbine blades. J Phys Conf 2007;75.
[34] Chan C, Bai H, He D. Blade shape optimization of the Savonius wind turbine
using a genetic algorithm. Appl Energy 2018;213:148e57.
[35] Sessarego M, Feng J, Ramos-Garcia N, Horcas S. Design optimization of a
curved wind turbine blade using neural Networks and an aero-elastic vortex
method under turbulent inflow. Renew Energy 2020;146:1524e35.
[36] Chehouri A, Younes R, Ilinca A, Perron J. Review of performance optimization
techniques applied to wind turbines. Appl Energy 2015;142:361e88.
[37] Ragni D, Ferreira C, Correale G. Experimental investigation of an optimized
airfoil for vertical-Axis wind turbines. Wind Energy 2015;18(9):1629e43.
[38] Balduzzi F, Bianchini A, Maleci R, Ferrara G, Ferrari L. Critical issues in the CFD
simulation of Darrieus wind turbines. Renew Energy 2016;85:419e35.
[39] ANSYS fluent theory Guide. vol. 18. ANSYS, Inc. Software Documentations for
Release; Oct 2017. 0.
[40] Thomas J, Diskin B, Rumsey C. Toward verification of unstructured-grid
solvers. AIAA J 2008;46(12):3070e9.
[41] Bonfiglioli A, Paciorri R. Convergence analysis of shock-capturing and shock-
fitting solutions on unstructured grids. AIAA J 2014;52(7):1404e16.
[42] Timmer W. Two-dimensional low-Reynolds number wind tunnel. Wind Eng
2008;32(6):525e37.
[43] Greenblatt D, Wygnanski I, Rumsey C. Aerodynamic flow control. In: Ency-
clopedia of Aerospace engineering. Online: John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.; 2010.
p. 1e12.
[44] Pfingsten K, Cecora R, Radespiel R. An experimental investigation of a gapless
high-lift system using circulation control. Proc. Katnet II conference. 2009.
Bremen.
[45] Seifert A, Bachar T, Koss D, Shepshelovich M, Wygnanski I. Oscillatory
blowing: a tool to delay boundary-layer separation. AIAA J 1993;31(11):
2052e60.
[46] Wagner J, Mount E, Giles H. 25 - design of experiments. In: Extrusion (2nd
edition): the definitive processing Guide and handbook. International Press,
Elsevier; 2013. p. 291e308.
[47] Mishra S, Datta-Gupta A. Chapter 7 - experimental design and response sur-
face analysis. In: Applied statistical modeling and data analytics: a practical
Guide for the petroleum geosciences. India: Elsevier; 2018. p. 169e93.
[48] Deb K. Multi-objective optimization using evolutionary algorithms. Interna-
tional Press: Wiley; 2001.
[49] Hansen M. Aerodynamics of wind turbines. second ed. London: Earthscan
Publications Ltd.; 2008.
[50] Q blade website [Online]. Available: http://www.q-blade.org/. [Accessed 2
January 2020].
[51] Marten D, Wendler J, Pechlivanoglou G, Nayeri C, Paschereit C. QBLADE: an
open Source tool for design and simulation of horizontal and vertical Axis
wind turbines. International Journal of Emerging Technology and Advanced
Engineering 2013;3(3):264e9.