Energy Conversion and Management 205 (2020) 112452

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Energy Conversion and Management

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/enconman

Parametric study and performance analysis of a swinging sail wind machine T

a a b,⁎
Radmarz Hosseinie , Reza Roohi , Goodarz Ahmadi
a
Department of Mechanical Engineering, College of Engineering, Fasa University, 74617-81189 Fasa, Iran
b
Department of Mechanical & Aeronautical Engineering, Clarkson University, Potsdam, NY 13699-5725, USA

A R T I C LE I N FO A B S T R A C T

Keywords: The increase in carbon dioxide concentration in the atmosphere and its detrimental effects has provided the
Micro-wind turbine incentive for the development of renewable energy resources. Wind energy is at the forefront of providing
Swinging sail renewable energy alternatives. One of the attractive categories of wind turbines is the biomimetic oscillating
Biomimetic energy harvester wings. In the present study, a new oscillating wind turbine that works with a horizontally swinging sail in
Computational fluid dynamics
crosswind flows was proposed. The dynamical equations of the turbine were derived, and a computational model
Parametric study
Stability analysis
for solving the governing equations using quasi-steady aerodynamic data of a flat plate was developed. The
computer code was used, and the time response of the turbine, the generated power, and the turbine perfor-
mance were investigated. The aerodynamics results were validated using a computational fluid dynamics (CFD)
approach. Effects of various parameters including oscillation period, mast length, flywheel inertia, resistive
torque and spring constant were examined, and the stability chart of the turbine was determined. The predicted
performance of the designed turbine agreed well with the expected behavior, and the estimated power coeffi-
cient was in the acceptable range for a micro-sized wind turbine suitable for working at low wind speeds.

1. Introduction flows. High efficiency of oscillating wings as hydro-turbine (for ex-

Developing renewable energy resources have attracted considerable
attention in the last few decades, due to its importance in mitigation of
climate change. One of the attractive renewable energy sources is
harvesting wind energy. In the last few decades, there has been a sig-
nificant expansion of the wind energy harvesting industry around the
globe, especially in Europe and North America [1–3].
The conventional design is the horizontal axis wind turbine
(HAWT), which has been widely used in wind farms. Despite their
popularity, HAWTs have certain mechanical shortcomings. These
drawbacks are: (1) the wear and corrosion in the drivetrain due to
random wind loading; (2) relatively high tip-speed ratio in the large-
scale HAWTs (which results in exertion of heavy loads and high stress
on different subsystems of these turbines); (3) certain limiting issues in
the design of generators; and (4) environmental issues, such as noise
generation, and danger to birds [4–6].
Drawbacks of HAWTs spark attention to alternative designs for wind
energy harvesting, and a spectrum of different alternative designs for
wind energy converter has been developed, at least for special purposes
and specific applications. One attractive alternative design for wind
turbines is the oscillating wing. The original and many earlier appli-
cations of the oscillating wing were for energy extraction from water
ample, 28% [7], 34% [8], and even 87% for the propulsive efficiency
[9]) has attracted the attention of many researchers. Platzer et al. [10],
Xiao and Zhu [11], and Young et al. [12] provided extensive reviews of
earlier advances of the oscillating wings energy converter. According to
these reviews, the global trend in this field is promising.
The oscillating wing was introduced and named as “wingmill” by
McKinney and DeLauriert [7], although there are some patents for
primitive oscillatory energy harvesting earlier. The motion of the os-
cillating wing is mainly plunging (or heaving) in combination with
pitching. Since this combinational motion of oscillating wing was in-
spired from the flapping of swimming and flying animals, the oscil-
lating wing is known as a biomimetic design.
Vortex generation and shedding, especially leading-edge vortex
(LEV), is known to be the primary source of power extraction in the
oscillating wings. Most of the studies in this field deal with the effects of
vortex generation on the performance of this type of turbine. It is be-
lieved that by controlling the intensity and timing of vortex generation
and shedding, the performance of oscillating wings can be improved.
The main parameters that control the vortex generation are pitch and
plunge amplitudes, plunge to pitch phase lag, and frequency of oscil-
lations.
There are plenty of detailed studies conducted on fluid dynamics of

⁎
Corresponding author.
E-mail addresses: hosseini.r@fasau.ac.ir (R. Hosseinie), ahmadi@clarkson.edu (G. Ahmadi).

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.enconman.2019.112452
Received 27 September 2019; Received in revised form 26 December 2019; Accepted 27 December 2019
0196-8904/ © 2020 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
R. Hosseinie, et al.
Nomenclature
Quantity/Parameter Name/Description, Unit
−
I1 Mast Inertia with respect to its CG, Kg.m2
−
I2 Sail Inertia with respect to its CG, Kg.m2
∗
β̇ Velocity Tolerance, rad/sec
̇
βmodified Modified Flywheel Angular Velocity, rad/sec
φ̇modified Modified Mast Angular Velocity, rad/sec
CD Drag Coefficient, –
CL Lift Coefficient, –
COP Dimensionless Center of Pressure of the sail, –
CG Center of Gravity, –
CP Power Coefficient, –
FD Drag Force, N
FL Lift Force, N
Fr r -component of Force between Mast and Sail, N
Fφ φ -component of Force between Mast and Sail, N
M1 Couple between Mast and Flywheel, N.m
M2 Couple Generated by Servomotor, N.m
Poutput Output (Generated) Power by the Turbine, W
Pservomotor Servomotor Power, W
input
Pservomotor Portion of Servomotor Power contributed in Input Power,
W β
Pwind Wind Power, W
Tkineticfriction Dynamometer Kinetic Friction Torque, N.m
Tresistive Resistive (Friction) Torque, N.m
the oscillating wing using computational fluid dynamics. Jones and
Platzer [13] compared the results of their CFD simulation with the
experimental data and the classical analytical flutter theories and in-
vestigated the effect of different parameters on the performance of the
oscillating wing. Davids [14] and Jones et al. [15] used CFD to model
the flow around an oscillating wing and compared it with the experi-
mental data from the water channel. They also determined the optimum
performance condition of the turbine. Lindsey [16] compared the ex-
perimental data from testing a tandem oscillating wing apparatus in a
water channel with the numerical simulation and studied the possibility
of commercial application of oscillating wing to produce electricity.
Guglielmini and Blondeaux [17] modeled the flow around an oscillating
wing numerically and investigated the behavior of the generated wake.
They found the amplitudes of pitch and plunge modes and the phase
difference between pitch and plunge to be crucial for the in-time gen-
eration of the leading-edge vortex and mixing it with the trailing edge
vortex properly, in order to increase the efficiency.
Jones et al. [18] used the experimental data and numerical simu-
lation and investigated the effect of pitch/plunge phase difference on
the oscillating wing efficiency from propulsion to power extraction.
Lewin and Haj-Hariri [19] numerically investigated the flow dynamics
over an oscillating wing and found that the highest performance is
achieved when the plunging frequency becomes equal to the frequency
of vortex shedding. Kinsey and Dumas [8] utilized the ANSYS-FLUENT
commercial software to model the flow dynamics over an oscillating
wing numerically. They concluded that the frequency and amplitude of
pitch/plunge oscillations govern the energy conversion performance.
Sun et al. [20] numerically examined the oscillating wing at wider
range of parameters and for a Reynolds number of about 600,000 and
found two peaks for efficiency. Pourmahdavi et al. [21] numerically
investigated an oscillating wing with fully prescribed motion and dis-
cussed the effect of different parameters on its performance.
Peng and Zhu [22] studied the flow over an oscillating wing using
CFD. The wing dynamic was fully passive, that is both pitching and
heaving motions were un-prescribed and harnessed by rotational and
linear springs, respectively. Zhu and Peng [23] numerically in-
vestigated the oscillating wing with passive plunging and deduced that
2
Energy Conversion and Management 205 (2020) 112452
Tstatic Torque Exerted by Mast on Flywheel at Static State, N.m
Vrel Relative Velocity of Wind to the Sail, m/s
d viscous Equivalent (Effective) Viscous Damping of the Turbine
Mechanism, Kg.m2/s
m0 Servomotor/Gearbox Mass, Kg
m1 Sail Mass, Kg
m2 Sail Mass, Kg
ρair Air Density, Kg/m3
ρmast Length Density of the Mast, Kg/m
ρsail Area Density of the Sail, Kg/m2
A Sail Area, m2
AR Aspect Ratio, –
J Flywheel Inertia, Kg.m2
K Torsion Spring Constant, N.m/rad
T Sail Oscillation Period, sec
U Wind Speed, m/s
a Width of the Sail (Each Part), m
b Height of the Sail, m
e Position of Sail COP according to Sail CG, m
l Mast Length, m
r Mast CG Position with Respect to its Axis of Rotation, m
α Apparent angle of attack, rad
Flywheel Angular Position, rad
θ Sail Angular Position, rad
φ Mast Angular Position, rad
the center of pitching and the hydrodynamic center must be as close as
possible for best performance. Zhang et al. [24] numerically in-
vestigated the propulsion of an oscillating flat plate. The pattern of
heave motion was sinusoidal, and the pitch motion was generated
passively by the flow. Young et al. [25] numerically investigated a fully
passive oscillating wing modeled with a linkage to invert reciprocal
heave of the wing to the rotation of a flywheel and studied the effects of
several parameters on the turbine performance. Veilleux and Dumas
[26] numerically studied a fully-passive self-sustained oscillating wing
and optimized its parameters to extract energy from water efficiently
without active control.
Boudreau et al. [27] used CFD and conducted a study of a semi-
passive oscillating wing with prescribed heaving motion. They ex-
amined combinations of several turbine parameters to find its optimum
performance. Liu et al. [28] numerically investigated an entirely pas-
sive oscillating wing and determined its optimum performance as a
small hydro-turbine. Picard-Deland et al. [29] conducted a numerical
study on a semi-passive oscillating wing with prescribed pitching and
passive heaving motion. They showed that for large heaving ampli-
tudes, it is possible to extract energy from the flow stream at relatively
high performance.
Recently, there have been several studies to improve the perfor-
mance of oscillating wings by development and modification of its
structure. Apte et al. [30] numerically simulated the flow over an os-
cillating flat plate subjected to a spring-mounted tail and concluded
that this could improve the efficiency and controllability of the wind
machine. Tian et al. [31] numerically investigated the effect of flex-
ibility of an oscillating plate on extracting power from the flow and
compared the results with a rigid plate subjected to an actively con-
trolled leading segment. They found the latter combination much more
efficient. Wu et al. [32] numerically modeled a wing oscillating in flow
subjected to prescribed motion with a flat flexible tail. Results showed
that the flexible tail could increase power extraction by increasing the
lift force.
Zhu et al. [33] numerically modeled a flexible oscillating wing and
found that it can be up to almost 16% more efficient than the rigid
wing. Liu et al. [34,35] studied a numerical model of rigid airfoil
R. Hosseinie, et al. Energy Conversion and Management 205 (2020) 112452

subjected to a spring-mounted flat tail. The airfoil pitching and plun- The oscillations of the plate in the wind generate swinging motion in a
ging motions were prescribed and the motion of the tail was passive. mast, which in turn develops rectified rotation in a flywheel via a
Results showed that suitable flexibility of the tail can enhance vortex ratchet mechanism. The new design has some significant differences
shedding and improves the turbine performance. Xie et al. [36] and Zhu with the majority of available oscillating wing turbines. Most
et al. [37] studied the effect of Gurney flaps on an oscillating wing
numerically. Their results showed that proper utilization of the Gurney
flap could improve the performance of the turbine by affecting the flow
structure around the airfoil. Zhu et al. [38] conducted a numerical in-
vestigation on the influence of wing deformations on the oscillating
wing performance. Their results showed that at a high frequency, a
body-attached vortex forms that is responsible for the enhancement of
the efficiency.
Oscillating wings have many advantages and seem to be promising
as a new approach for wind energy conversion. The biomimetic essence
of these turbines yields high performance at relatively low velocities
and moderate induced stresses by taking advantage of vortex genera-
tion and shedding. Furthermore, they utilize all the span of the wing to
harvest energy from the wind. They also have acceptable efficiency
compared to other types of wind turbines, especially at low wind
speeds. However, there would be some challenges for the practical
utilization of these machines as power generators. For instance, a
challenging issue for oscillatory turbines is their electrical generators.
Linear generators are less efficient and more expensive compared to
conventional rotary generators. Therefore, transforming the motion
from oscillation to rotation by a smart mechanism or sophisticate de-
sign of a linear generator is required. Furthermore, despite the increase
in efficiency due to the leading edge vortex generation and shedding,
this phenomenon is rather complicated and may lead to some practical
difficulties including dynamical instability of the turbine.
In this article, the conceptual design of a new swinging sail turbine
was introduced, and its operation was described. In this design, a simple
mechanism was utilized to transform oscillatory motion into the rotary
one. Here, the main goal was to investigate the ability of the designed
turbine to work at low wind speeds, which is the condition in many
inland regions. The consideration of low wind speeds also avoids the
dynamic LEV generation and its resulting complexities. Using the quasi-
steady aerodynamic correlations, the corresponding governing equa-
tions of motion were derived and implemented in a computer code. For
a given set of benchmark turbine parameters, a series of numerical si-
mulations for the performance of the wind turbine was performed. The
airflow over the turbine sail was evaluated using a detailed CFD si-
mulation. The predicted aerodynamic forces were compared with the
results generated by the correlations used in the computer code, and
good agreement was found. The validated code was used and the per-
formance of the turbine for a range of variations of parameters was
investigated. In addition, the performance of the turbine for different
sizes was also studied. Finally, the dynamical stability of the turbine
was also investigated. The results for the generated power, as well as
the power coefficient of the benchmarked turbine, showed that the new
swinging sail wind turbine was suitable to harvest wind energy at low
wind speeds.

2. Physical configuration of the designed wind turbine and its

operation

In this section, the design of the new swinging sail turbine, which
works with wind-induced drag force by rotating a flat plate periodically
against the wind that is tracked and tuned by a control mechanism, is
presented. The schematic of the swinging sail wind turbine is shown in
Fig. 1. The wind velocity and the rotation speed are kept low in order to
avoid dynamic behaviors of vortices that occur with the fluttering of the
sail. Therefore, a quasi-steady flow over the sail can be assumed. The
turbine is expected to operate at low wind speeds, around 2 m/s, which
is the typical breezing speed, which is typical in many inland areas. Fig. 1. Schematic illustration of configuration and components of the new
In this design, the drag rather than the lift is the driving force, since swing sail turbine: (a) isometric view, (b) side view. The external forces and
this turbine works with direct pressure drag of the wind on the plate. torque are shown in the side view. The weights are not shown.

3
R. Hosseinie, et al.
importantly, the main aerodynamic force for its operation is the drag
rather than the lift. Consequently, it can operate at low wind speeds.
The motion of the sail is a combination of pitching and swinging modes
rather than pitching and plunging. The sail oscillation is actively con-
trolled, and the time-function of the sail is prescribed (as will be dis-
cussed in Section 3.1). In addition, the swinging motion of the mast in
response to oscillations of the turbine’s sail is passive. The swinging of
the mast adjusts and synchronizes itself autonomously with the pre-
scribed oscillation of the sail. The resulting oscillatory motion of the
turbine is a self-excited oscillation, with a limit cycle as its steady-state
response. This point is further discussed in Section 4.1.
The proposed design is composed of the following major compo-
nents: (a) double-plate sail, (b) rigid link as its mast, (c) flywheel, and
(d) servomotor and its gearbox to control the orientation of the sail
(Fig. 1). Additionally, there would be a generator to transform the
harvested wind power to the electrical power and a gearbox to increase
the rotational speed into the working speed range of the conventional
generators. To simplify the analysis, these have been omitted in the
present study. Instead, a belt dynamometer is employed to exert re-
sistive torque on the flywheel by generating dry friction between the
belt and the peripheral surface of the flywheel. The resistive torque is
used in the calculations of the generated power and CP of the turbine.
The possibility of utilizing conventional gearboxes and generators or
the need for designing a special type of gearbox and generator for the
designed turbine is left for future studies.
The sail is made up of two light rectangular plates. The symmetric
design leads to a minimum twisting moment on the mast generated by
the wind force. The two plates are fastened to a connecting rod, which
passes through the common line of symmetry of the two plates (axis O2
in Fig. 1(b)). Due to the symmetry and homogeneity of the rectangular
plates, the centers of gravity (CG) of the plates coincide with the
symmetry line of the rectangles, so O2 is also the CG of the sail as shown
in the figure. The sail axis is connected to the servomotor and its
gearbox mounted on the head of the mast (Fig. 1(a)). This system of
motor/gearbox controls the orientation of the sail using feedback from
the orientation sensors mounted on the sail and mast axes. Assuming
the CG of the system of motor/gearbox and its output axis to coincide
with point O2 where the sail is hinged to the mast, this point can be
considered as the center of rotation of the sail, as is illustrated in
Fig. 1(b). The mast is a narrow light rod, which oscillates around its
rotation axis (axis O1 in Fig. 1(b)). The rotating axis is a shaft which is
mounted on its grounded supports. The mast oscillates around the shaft.
The shaft is connected to the flywheel via a ratchet mechanism, in
which the oscillatory motion of the mast is rectified and transformed
into a one-way rotational motion of the flywheel (Fig. 1(a)). Moreover,
a torsion spring is attached to the mast, which produces a returning
torque exerted on the mast. A belt dynamometer is mounted on the
flywheel to harness the flywheel energy and exerts resistive torque on
it, as explained above.
According to Fig. 1(b) and assuming that the wind blows horizon-
tally, uniformly and unidirectional from left to right, it exerts a drag
force on the sail and pushes the sail forward to the right. For max-
imizing the drag force, the sail must be perpendicular to the wind di-
rection, i.e., vertical, which can be fulfilled by the feedback control. The
mast turns clockwise due to the drag force exerted on the sail, and
consequently, the flywheel rotates with the mast. The equilibrium is
reached for the vertical orientation of the mast due to the force exerted
by the torsion spring. That is, the spring torque enhances by increasing
the mast angular deviation from the vertical direction. At a certain
moment or angle, depending on the control strategy chosen for the sail
orientation, the sail turns back by the servomotor, in order to reduce
the drag force on the sail. The minimum drag occurs when the sail is
horizontal, which markedly reduces the torque exerted by the wind
drag and permits the spring to return the mast counterclockwise. When
the mast is returning, the flywheel decouples from it due to the ratchet
mechanism between the mast and the flywheel (Fig. 1(a)).
4
Energy Conversion and Management 205 (2020) 112452
Consequently, the flywheel continues to rotate clockwise losing speed
due to the friction torque or even stops. The described cycle will be
repeated by turning the orientation of the sail into vertical.
The operation of the turbine can be divided into two phases: (1) The
coupled phase: in which the sail is vertical and the wind forces the sail
to rotate the mast clockwise together with the engaged flywheel. In this
phase, energy is harvested from the wind and transforms into heat, due
to the resistive friction torque generated in the belt dynamometer. (2)
The decoupled phase: in which the sail is horizontal and the mast is
returning counterclockwise due to the spring torque, and the flywheel
continues to rotate decoupled from the mast, which causes the heat to
be still generated, or stops and becomes stationary.
In this design, maintaining the desired sail angle of attack is most
important. For sensing the sail angle of attack, a gyro can be installed
on the sail. This sensor records the absolute apparent angle of attack (α
in Fig. 1(b)) of the sail. However, the servomotor is mounted on the
mast and operates with the relative angle of sail and mast, i.e., θ − φ ,
according to Fig. 1(b). This necessitates having feedback signals both
from θ (or α ), which is obtained by the gyro mounted on the sail, and φ ,
which is recorded by a shaft encoder connected to the mast axis. The
controller compares the actual sail orientation with the desired pre-
scribed function (discussed in Section 3.1) to track this function. The
sail orientation control system is crucial for the turbine to operate ef-
ficiently. However, the design and modeling of this control system are
not addressed in the present study.
It should also be noted that the proposed design is sensitive to the
wind direction; therefore, it is important for the swinging sail turbine to
be oriented toward the incoming wind. In practice, a solution can be a
yaw adjustment mechanism to align the sail towards the wind. This can
be maintained passively by deploying a rudder, or actively by using a
wind velocity sensor commanding a yaw-steering motor. However, this
issue will be addressed in the prototype version of this design using
different strategies, which are described in the section on concluding
remarks and future works.
3. Mathematical modelling and numerical simulation
3.1. The time variation of the sail angle
In this work, the orientation of sail is predefined and changes har-
monically between 0° and 90° with the following time variation:
π⎡ 2πt π
θ (t ) = sin ⎛ + ⎞ + 1⎤
4⎣ ⎝ T 2⎠ ⎦ (1)
where t is time and T is the period of oscillation. Consequently, the
angular velocity and angular acceleration of the sail are predefined
functions of time. The sail orientation is controlled via a feedback loop
to track the time variation given by Eq. (1). The phase of the sinusoidal
function in Eq. (1) is set in a way that the sail is horizontal at t = 0 . The
performance of the turbine depends on the steady-state oscillatory re-
sponse of the turbine after vanishing the transient part of the response.
Consequently, the initial condition does not affect the steady-state re-
sponse and consequently, the performance analysis of the turbine.
However, the selected initial condition here is consistent with the
neutral and standby configuration of the turbine.
3.2. Aerodynamics of the sail
The aerodynamic forces as the turbine driving factor should be ac-
curately modeled and implemented in the numerical simulation. For
this purpose, the wind tunnel experimental investigation of Ortiz et al.
2015 [39] is utilized in the present study. They measured the steady
and instantaneous components of the aerodynamic forces and moments
acting on a flat plate inside a wind tunnel. A wide range of plate aspect
ratios (up to 8) at different angles of attack was examined.
R. Hosseinie, et al. Energy Conversion and Management 205 (2020) 112452

The drag and lift coefficients, as well as the location of the center of equation of rotation around the CG of the sail (point O2), we have:
pressure of the sail plate, are extracted from the experimental results of −¨
I2 θ = e (FD cosθ + FL sinθ)+M2 (8)
[39] and fitted to form appropriate polynomial functions as:
where θ is the angle of sail with respect to the vertical direction, M2 is
CD = (a0D + a1D AR + a2D AR2 + a3D AR3 )(b0D + b1D α + b2D α 2 + b3D α3)
the moment exerted by the motor/gearbox system on the sail, e is the
(2) −
position of the center of pressure with respect to the axis of rotation, I2
CL = (a0L + a1L AR + a2L AR2 + a3L AR3 )(b0L + b1L α + b2L α 2 + b3L α3) (3) is the sail inertia, and FD and FL are the drag (horizontal) and lift
(vertical) components of the aerodynamic force exerted on the sail.
COP Because θ (t ) and consequently θ¨ (t ) are given functions of time, M2 is
determined from Eq. (8). Therefore,
= (a0COP + a1COP AR + a2COP AR2 + a3COP AR3 )
−
(b0COP + b1LCOP α + b2COP α 2 + b3LCOP α3) (4) M2 = I 2 θ¨ − e (FD cosθ + FL sinθ) (9)

where in the above equations α , AR , CD , CL and COP are, respectively, Writing Newton’s second law in the φ -direction, we have:
the plate angle of attack, the plate aspect ratio, the drag and the lift m2 lφ¨ = Fφ + FD cosφ + FL sinφ + m2 gsinφ (10)
coefficients, and the location of the center of pressure. It should be
pointed out that the dimensionless form of the location of the center of where Fφ is the force exerted from the mast to the sail in the φ -direction,
pressure is utilized here (as the variable reported in [39]). The COP m2 is the mass of the sail, and l is the length of the mast.
becomes non-dimensional based on the height of the sail, i.e., Fig. 2-(c) shows the free-body diagram of the mast. Writing the
e = b (COP ) , according to Fig. 1(b). The constant parameters of Eqs. Euler moment balance equation around point O1, we have:
(2)–(4) are calculated and presented in Table 1. −
m1 grsinφ + m 0 glsinφ − Fφ l − M1 − M2 − Kφ = (I1 + m1 r 2 + m 0 l 2) φ¨
It should be emphasized that the drag, lift, and COP evaluated with
(11)
the use of Eqs. (2)–(4) and the corresponding coefficients that are listed −
in Table 1 are for the steady-state conditions, while the sail in the where I1 is the mast inertia around its center of mass, m 0 is the mass of
present wind energy converter undergoes a transient oscillatory/ the servomotor and gearbox, m1 is the mass of mast, r is the distance of
swinging motion. Therefore, utilization of the steady-state experimental the mast center of mass to its center of rotation O1, K is the stiffness of
data is an approximation. That is the transient flow pattern around the the torsion spring, and φ is the mast angle with the vertical direction.
plate, as well as the formation of detaching vortexes behind the plate, Substituting Fφ from Eq. (10) in Eq. (11), we get:
could lead to deviation from the steady experimental data. Never- −
(I1 + m1 r 2 + m2 l 2 + m 0 l 2) φ¨ + Kφ − g (m1 r + m2 l + m 0 l) sinφ − l
theless, Eqs. (2)–(4) provide a first-order approximation for the exerted
forces on the sail and are used in the subsequent analysis. (FD cosφ + FL sinφ) = −M2 − M1 (12)
Under the assumption that the wind direction is horizontal, the Fig. 2-(d) illustrates the free-body diagram of the flywheel. Writing
horizontal component of the aerodynamic force on the sail is the drag the Euler moment balance equation for the axis of rotation of the fly-
force, and the vertical component is the lift force. The sail angle of wheel we have:
attack (α ) is always less than or equal to 90° ; therefore, the lift is typi-
cally downward, and we consider the downward lift component to be Jβ¨ + d viscous β ̇ = M1 − Tresistive (13)
positive. The drag and lift components of the aerodynamic force are where J is the inertia of the flywheel, β is the flywheel angle, Tresistive is
given as: the resistive friction torque exerted by the dynamometer, and d viscous is
1 the equivalent viscous damping ratio of the turbine. Eqs. (9), (12) and
FD = CD ρair AVrel 2
2 (5) (13) are the governing equations of the turbine.
It must be pointed out that in the analysis of the turbine, the wind
1
FL = CL ρair AVrel 2 direction is assumed to be from left to right, which is common in fluid
2 (6)
dynamic analyses. Also, the sail and mast orientations are measured
where A is the area of the sail, ρair is the air density and Vrel is the from the vertical direction, according to the configuration of this tur-
relative velocity of wind to the sail. bine for which its mast has a vertical equilibrium position. The com-
Unlike the majority of oscillating wing turbines, this design moves bination of these two conventions results in a clockwise positive sense
in horizontal swinging, rather than plunging. Therefore, the vertical for the sail, mast, and flywheel rotation.
component of Vrel is relatively small and can be neglected for simplicity, As previously described, the motion of the turbine is dividable into
and we can write two different phases: (1) The coupled phase, when the wind pushes the
sail, and consequently, the mast causes the flywheel to rotate via the
Vrel = U − lφ̇cosφ (7)
ratchet mechanism. (2) The decoupled phase, when the drag force on
which is the horizontal component of the wind velocity relative to the the sail reduces and the mast detaches from the flywheel and returns to
sail CG, where U is the wind speed and lφ̇cosφ is the horizontal com- its original position due to the spring.
ponent of the sail CG (See Fig. 2-(a)).
The effect of the vertical component of Vrel in calculating the angle of Table 1
attack can either be neglected and consequently, the effective angle of Constant parameters for CD , CL , and COP evaluation.
π
attack will be equal to the apparent angle of attack, i.e., α = 2 − θ . It is a0i a1i a2i a3i
also noteworthy that according to the prescribed profile of the sail
given by Eq. (1), the value of αmax is 90° . i=D −0.0765 0.0034 −0.00081 4.78E-5
i=L 0.2930 0.0286 −0.01064 0.00079
i = COP −0.1305 −0.06863 0.08910 −0.00708
3.3. The governing equations of motion for the turbine
b0i b1i b2i b3i
The governing equations of the turbine motion are derived here
i=D −0.8698 −0.1443 −0.00201 2.04E-5
using the classical Newton method. Fig. 2-(a) depicts the velocity dia-
i=L −0.1896 0.1758 −0.00329 1.53E-5
gram of the sail center of mass, where also passes its axis of rotation. i = COP 0.8184 −0.03002 3.686E-4 −2.221e-06
Fig. 2-(b) shows the free-body diagram of the sail. According to Euler’s

5
R. Hosseinie, et al. Energy Conversion and Management 205 (2020) 112452

Fig. 2. Schematics of (a) velocity diagram of the sail CG, (b) free-body diagram of the sail, (c) free-body diagram of the mast, and (d) free-body diagram of the
flywheel (flywheel weight and its support reaction are not shown).

If the velocity of the mast is less than the velocity of the flywheel −
(I1 + m1 r 2 + m2 l 2 + m 0 l 2) φ¨ + Kφ − g (m1 r + m2 l + m 0 l) sinφ
̇ then the mast and flywheel are decoupled. In this phase of
(i.e., φ̇ < β ),
= l (FD cosφ + FL sinφ) − M2 (14)
motion, the torsional torque acting on the flywheel by the mast (M1)
vanishes, noting that this torque cannot be negative due to the opera-
tion of the ratchet mechanism. Consequently, the equations of motion Jβ¨ + d viscous β ̇ = −Tresistive (15)
for the decoupled phase become:
Here we used the simple Coulomb model for dry friction for this
phase [40,41]:

6
R. Hosseinie, et al. Energy Conversion and Management 205 (2020) 112452

⎧Tkineticfriction sgn (β )̇ ifβ ̇ ≠ 0 According to the positive direction considered for M2 in Fig. 2-(b), we
Tresistive = will have:
⎨
⎩ 0 ifβ ̇ = 0 (16)
input
Pservomotor = M2 (φ̇ − θ)̇ if M2 (φ̇ − θ)̇ > 0 (23)
where Tkineticfrcition is the kinetic friction torque between dynamometer
and flywheel. The magnitude of kinetic friction torque depends on the The generated power by the turbine is measured by the dynam-
amount of stretch produced in the dynamometer belt by tightening its ometer resistive torque applied on the flywheel multiplied by the fly-
adjusting screw. As mentioned before, since the ratchet mechanism wheel rotational speed:
rectifies the flywheel motion, the signum (sgn) function in Eq. (15) is
Poutput = Tresisitive β ̇ (24)
not needed.
When the angular velocity of the mast reaches the angular velocity The generated power never becomes negative, as the mast can only
of the flywheel, they stick and rotate together. Here, the impact of the rotate the flywheel in a positive direction, i.e., clockwise due to the
mast and flywheel is assumed to be perfectly plastic, that is the angular convention in Fig. 1(b).
speed of the mast and flywheel is equal after the impact. This as- The power coefficient or CP, which is defined as the ratio of output
sumption omits the potential bouncing and overshooting of the mast on power to the input power, is then calculated as:
the ratchet and avoids the complications that arise in the analysis. As
noted before, the condition for coupling is that the angular velocity of
Poutput Tresisitive β ̇
CP = input
=
1
the mast reaches the angular velocity of the flywheel, that is, φ̇ = β .̇ On Pwind + Pservomotor ρ AU 3 + M (φ̇ − θ)̇
2 air 2 positive (25)
the other hand, due to the ratchet mechanism, the torsional torque
exerted by the mast on the flywheel must be positive (clockwise), which
can be considered as the kinetic condition for the coupled phase. As a 3.5. Numerical simulation of the turbine
result of mast and flywheel sticking and moving together, we can as-
sume φ̇ = β ̇ and φ¨ = β¨ . Inserting these two conditions in Eq. (13), it 3.5.1. Benchmark set of parameters for the turbine
follows that, For studying the dynamical behavior of the turbine and in-
M1 = Jφ¨ + d viscous φ̇ + Tresistive (17) vestigating its time response, a set of parameters for the benchmarked
turbine is selected. Here, the density of the sail is considered to be as
The coupling condition then will be M1 > 0 . low as possible assuming the conventional light composite materials.
Putting φ̇ = β ̇ and φ¨ = β¨ in Eq. (14), and omitting M1 between the The density of the mast is assumed to be near the conventional alu-
two equations, we find: minum profiles (as listed in Table 2). The aspect ratio of the sail is
− selected to be 1. This aspect ratio gives the maximum drag to lift ratio,
(J + I 1 + m1 r 2 + m2 l 2 + m 0 l 2) φ¨ + d viscous φ̇ + Kφ − g
as noted in [39]. Other geometric parameters such as the sail width and
(m1 r + m2 l + m 0 l) sinφ = l (FD cosφ + FL sinφ) + M2 − Tresistive height, and the mast length, are selected to be appropriate for a micro-
(18) sized wind turbine, which operates in low wind speeds. Other para-
Using the friction model of Karnopp [41], the resistive torque will meters (including flywheel inertia, torsion spring constant, and resistive
be: torque) are selected by trial and error through several simulations for
obtaining the roughly optimized CP at the wind speed of U = 1m / s . The
min ( max (Tstatic. −Tstaticfriction). Tstaticfriction ) if φ̇ = 0 complexity of system dynamics and the potential for instability requires
Tresistive = ⎧
⎨Tkineticfriction sgn (φ̇) if φ̇ ≠ 0 (19) an extensive search by performing a large number of simulations for
⎩
finding appropriate turbine parameters.
where Tstatic is the torque exerted by the mast on the flywheel, if the The servomotor and gearbox mass, which is comparatively small
turbine is stationary: compared to masses of the mast and sail, was neglected and m 0 is set to
Tstatic = −Kφ + (m1 r + m2 l + m 0 l) gsinφ + l (FD cosφ + FL sinφ)+M2 zero, as noted in Table 2. Mathematically, the contribution of this mass
in the turbine equations of motion appears in combination with the
(20)
masses of mast and sail. Therefore, the mass of servomotor and gearbox
In the above formula, FD , FL , and M2 are calculated for φ̇ = 0 . can be treated as a small additional mass of the mast. Neglecting m 0
Tstaticfriction is the static friction torque, which is a threshold for the sliding makes the equations of motion slightly more compact not to treat this
initiation and can be determined experimentally. As it was mentioned mass as a separate term in the equations of motion. Furthermore, the
above for the decoupled phase, Eq. (19) can also be simplified due to effective damping coefficient of the turbine mechanism is also set to
the rectification obtained by the ratchet mechanism. zero for simplicity and ease of analysis (see Table 2). However, these
terms are retained in the equations of motion given by Eqs. (17) and
3.4. The power and CP calculations
Table 2
The wind power supplied to the turbine is considered to be the total Benchmarked parameters of the turbine.
wind power exerted perpendicularly to the total area of the sail. That is,
Quantity Notation Value Units
1
Pwind = ρair AU 3 Sail Width a 1 m
2 (21)
Sail Height b 1 m
Another source of power will be the power consumed by the ser- Sail Total Area 2A 2 m2
vomotor in order to rotate the sail. Noticing the positive direction as- Sail Aspect Ratio AR 1
Sail Area Density ρsail 0.1 Kg/m2
sumed for M2, the servomotor power is calculated as:
Servomotor plus gearbox mass m0 0 Kg
Pservomotor = −M2 (θ ̇ − φ̇) Sail Oscillation Period T 7 sec
(22)
Mast Length L 2 m
where M2 is the servomotor torque which is represented by Eq. (8), and Mast Length Density ρmast 0.2 Kg/m
θ ̇ − φ̇ is the relative angular velocity between the sail and the mast. Flywheel Inertia J 5 Kg.m2
Torsion spring Constant K 10 N.m/rad
Since the negative values of Pservomotor imply the rate of the work done by Resistive Torque Tresistive 1 N.m
the turbine on the servomotor, only the positive values of the servo- Effective Damping Coefficient dviscous 0 Kg/sec
motor power have to be considered to contribute to the input power.

7
R. Hosseinie, et al.
(18) for completeness and maintaining the generality of the governing
equations for future investigations.
3.5.2. Numerical algorithm for solving the equations of motion
To investigate the dynamical behavior and the performance of this
turbine, the governing equations of motion derived before need to be
solved numerically. The governing equations are nonlinear and care
should be given in their numerical solution. In addition, the presence of
the dry friction (Eqs. (16) and (19)) is a cause for hard nonlinearity of
the system as the sticking and sliding modes of dry friction need to be
included in the analysis. These nonlinearities including the conditional
discontinuous dynamics of the turbine due to its coupled and decoupled
phases, need to be accounted for in the numerical simulation of the
turbine operation.
A MATLAB code for numerical simulating the governing equations
of the system was developed using Runge-Kutta order-4 method with fix
time step [42]. When more precision is needed, the time step was re-
duced, and to alleviate the round-off error, the ‘double precision’ format
for the numbers is used.
The general algorithm of the code is represented in the flowchart
shown in Fig. 3. At each time step, the decoupled phase of motion is
considered. The code solves the decoupled equations of motion using
the values from the previous step as initial conditions for the current
step. Then, the condition for coupling is checked for the obtained values
parameters at the end of the time step. If the coupling condition is sa-
tisfied, then the time step is repeated using the equations of motion for
the coupled case.
Fig. 3. The flowchart of the code.
8
Energy Conversion and Management 205 (2020) 112452
In order to avoid flattering around zero due to the discontinuity of
the signum function that appeared in the dry friction model (Eqs. (16)
and (19)), the signum function has to be substituted with a continuous
replica. Sigmoid functions such as arctangent and tangent hyperbolic
are typically used to represent the sign functions with a tolerance [40].
The sigmoid function utilized here is the tangent hyperbolic [40]:
β̇
Tresistive = −Tkineticfriction tanh ⎛⎜ ∗ ⎞⎟
̇
⎝β ⎠ (26)
∗̇
where β is the velocity tolerance.
Proper selection of the velocity tolerance is of great importance,
especially when the flywheel stops by the friction torque. The value of
this parameter has to be adjusted relative to the time step size. A very
sharp velocity tolerance (relative to the time step size) causes the re-
sponse velocity to fluctuate around the zero. On the other side, rela-
tively large values of the velocity tolerance result in a biased time re-
sponse.
At the time steps when the coupled phase begins, the code modifies
the initial velocities according to the following relationship:
−
(I + m1 r 2 + m2 l 2 + m 0 l 2) φ̇ + Jβ ̇
̇
φmodified ̇
= βmodified = 1 −
J + I 1 + m1 r 2 + m2 l 2 + m 0 l 2 (27)
which is derived from the condition for perfectly plastic impact (full-
plastic collision). This simple method reduces the computational time
but introduces some errors in the results, particularly for the separation
moment, when the coupled phase ends. To reduce the error and to
R. Hosseinie, et al.
Fig. 4. Schematics of the computational domain and boundary conditions.
Fig. 5. Computational grids at three levels of refinement: (a) 731,121, (b) 1,237,102 and (c) 2,154,632 cells.
capture the coupling and decupling transition accurately, the smaller
step size is used. For smooth and slow dynamics of the turbine, several
time steps were tested, and a time step size of 10−3 s was found to lead
to accurate results. Several simulation runs proved that the time step
size of 10−3 s in conjunction with the angular velocity tolerance of
10−6 rad/s provides adequate accuracy even for steps that include the
occurrence of mast/flywheel coupling.
3.5.3. Computational fluid dynamics simulation
The fluid flow as a result of sail movement and air motion is gov-
erned by the mean continuity and the Reynolds Averaged Navier-Stokes
(RANS) equation [43]. For the current study, the standard k-ε turbu-
lence model with the enhanced wall functions is utilized [44]. The k-ε
model is the most commonly used turbulence model and includes two
transport equations for the turbulence kinetic energy and dissipation
rate. While the accuracy of turbulence models may vary, it has been
shown that the k-ε model is reasonably accurate for wall-bounded flows
and flows over airfoils [45,46]. Nevertheless, two other turbulence
models, namely, the Spalart–Allmaras and the k-ω models are also
tested to determine the impact of the turbulence model on the obtained
results. The drag variations with time are utilized as the compatibility
measure. The simulated drag with the use of the Spalart–Allmaras and
the standard k-ω models deviated, respectively, by 3.2% and 5.1% from
the prediction of the k-ε model.
3.5.3.1. Dynamic mesh. The term “dynamic mesh” referred to CFD
cases in which the domain varies with time by either fluid effect or pre-
specified boundary movement. For the present study, the position and
orientation of the sail are updated at every time step based on the
output of the system dynamics code. Consequently, the geometry and
mesh are regenerated automatically by the ANSYS-FLUENT software.
The FLUENT software offers three main approaches for moving mesh
9
Energy Conversion and Management 205 (2020) 112452
namely, spring-based smoothing, dynamic layering, and re-meshing.
For large deformation or complex geometry motion, the re-meshing
method is more suitable and practical. The motion of the sail is defined
using a user-defined function (UDF) and the time step is reduced to
0.025 of the oscillations period to prevent mesh cells distortion and
negative volume formation during the simulation.
3.5.3.2. Simulation considerations. The set of governing equations are
transformed into a set of algebraic equations using the finite volume
approach for examining the unsteady flow problem. The coupling
between velocity and pressure variables is accounted for using the
Semi-Implicit Pressure Linked Equations (SIMPLE) algorithm in the
ANSYS-FLUENT software. It should be noted that among various
pressure-velocity coupling methods, the SIMPLE algorithm has the
lowest computational time per iteration and has been used extensively
for cases with stable behavior. Therefore, the SIMPLE algorithm is
implemented for the current study. The PRESTO scheme was used for
the pressure discretization, and the second-order upwind scheme is
applied for the discretization of the convective terms in the governing
equations of momentum, turbulence kinetic energy, and dissipation
rate. The least-squares cell-based gradient and second-order implicit
techniques are utilized for spatial and temporal discretization [46].
The Courant-Friedrichs-Lewy number (CFL) is checked to ensure
CFLmax < 1.0 criteria within the entire computational domain.
Moreover, the time step is selected to provide the convergence of all of
the governing equations in less than 30 sub-iterations of each time step
(time step = 0.025 s). To ensure the convergence of the numerical si-
mulation the relative average residual is set to 1.0e-5 for all of the
governing equations, including mass, momentum, k and ε equations.
The required sub-iterations to ensure convergence at each time step is
obtained to be below 35 at the early stages of the solution, while as the
flow field is formed through time, the number of sub-iterations reduce
R. Hosseinie, et al.
Fig. 6. Time variations of: (a) the sail angle (θ ) and the mast angle (φ ), and (b) angular velocities of the sail (θ ),
turbine.
to below 15 (dependent to the instantaneous orientation of the sail).
3.5.3.3. Geometry and computational domain. The computational
domain for simulating the sail oscillations in the wind airflow field is
illustrated in Fig. 4. In order to model the sail in a free wind stream, a
rather large computational domain with W = 5 m, H = 6 m, L1 = 6 m,
L = 24 m was selected to reduce the blockage effects. The sail is placed
at a distance of 6 m from the inlet and 2 m above the lower wall. The
10
Energy Conversion and Management 205 (2020) 112452
̇ mast (φ̇) and flywheel (β ),
̇ for the benchmarked
location of the sail in the z-direction is not fixed in the simulation. The
position of its center depends on the mast angle of rotation. In other
words, the motion of sail in CFD has two degrees of freedom, rotation
about its center and the center movement according to the mast
oscillations. However, when the mast is in the vertical position, the
sail location in the z-direction is equal to the mast length (2 m). So, the
vertical position of the sail for the validation case varies between 1.96
and 2 m.
R. Hosseinie, et al.
Fig. 7. Close up of one-period variations of the mast and flywheel angular velocities of the benchmarked turbine.
Regarding the selected dimensions for the computational domain, it
should be noted that as the sail rotates during its motion, the blockage
ratio is not fixed. Its value fluctuates between 0.8% (for horizontal sail)
to 16.7% (for vertical position). However, as the occurrence of the
vertical position is instantaneous, the flow blockage by the sail is small
and does not noticeably affect the upper boundary condition. In other
words, the domain height (or blockage ratio) is selected such that it
does not perturb the pressure magnitude at the upper surface.
Furthermore, for realistic boundary condition at the upper surface, two
additional conditions are checked, namely, horizontal velocity vector
and zero relative pressure (the pressure variations at the upper surface
is below 3%).
A uniform velocity distribution is imposed at the inlet boundary,
and a zero relative pressure boundary condition is assigned at the flow
outlet. To decrease the computational time only half of the physical
domain is simulated using the symmetry boundary condition at the
mid-plane of the domain. The bottom surface is assigned as a no-slip
boundary condition, while the wall with zero shear stress and symmetry
boundary conditions are set, respectively, for the upper surface and the
sidewalls of the computational domain. For the upper surface, a zero
shear stress boundary condition is selected to ensure the formation of
streamwise flow parallel to the inlet velocity. Moreover, the no-slip
bottom wall and the peripheral sail surfaces are set as smooth (zero
roughness) wall.
Additionally, it should be noted that the listed height and width of
the sail in Table 2 are referring to one half of the sail plate (as the sail
total area listed in Table 2 is 2A = 2ab where a and b are the width and
height of sail half-plate, respectively). However, as the aspect ratio of
AR = 2 is still categorized as low aspect ratio, the unsteady variations
of lift and drag coefficients were assessed again using the full sail CFD
simulation to check the validity of the symmetry boundary condition.
According to the results, the presence of 3D wake phenomena does not
affect the lift and drag forces as well as the center of pressure (less than
0.31% average deviation in one period).
3.5.3.4. Grid study. While a large grid size increases the computational
accuracy, it also increases the computational cost. To find the optimum
mesh size, three grids sizes are examined and the effect of mesh
quantity is assessed. The optimum computational grid is then selected
as the one with the minimum number of cells which generates grid-
independent simulation results. The coarse, medium and fine grids,
respectively, with 731,121, 1,237,102 and 2,154,632 cells are
11
Energy Conversion and Management 205 (2020) 112452
illustrated in Fig. 5. Here to represent the grids’ distribution in the
computational domain, a section cut is utilized with the left-hand side
of each part showing the surface cells, while the right-hand side
represents the inner cells. Conformal boundary layer grids are applied
around the plate surfaces and near the lower wall to increase the
accuracy of shear stress and pressure force calculations at wall surfaces.
The magnitude of the drag force acting on the sail is used as the grid
independency criteria. That is, the grid independency test is performed
according to the variations of drag force through one period of
oscillations. For this purpose, the average drag force for one period of
oscillation is calculated for different meshes and the results are
compared to choose the optimal mesh size. The simulation results
showed that the relative average difference between the drag forces of
coarse and medium grids is 8.35%, while the difference between the
medium and fine grids is 0.45%. On the other hand, the computational
time is increased by 457% and 1,743% by utilization of medium and
fine grids in comparison to the coarse grid. Therefore, to simultaneously
increase the computational accuracy and also prevent a significant
increase in the computational cost, the grid with 1,237,102 cells is
selected for the subsequent numerical simulations. The grid near the
sail surface is quite dense and the corresponding maximum and average
y+ values of the utilized mesh are, respectively, 4.5 and 1.9.
4. Results and discussion
4.1. Time-response of the benchmarked turbine
The time response of the turbine is examined in this section. The
benchmarked parameters listed in Table 2 are used, the wind speed is
assumed to be 1m / s and the time step size is set to 0.001 sec. The si-
mulated time variations of the mast angle (φ ), together with the sail
angle (θ ) are shown in Fig. 6-(a). As noted before, the time function for
the sail angle is harmonic. The π value for the sail angle represents its
2
horizontal orientation, while the zero value is its vertical configuration.
Fig. 6-(a) shows that the turbine responded to the sail oscillations with
̇ mast
a phase delay. Time variations of the angular velocities of sail (θ ),
(φ̇) and flywheel (β )̇ are depicted in Fig. 6-(b). The coupled and de-
coupled phases of motion are clearly seen in this figure. When the sail
turns to its horizontal orientation, the mast returns clockwise and se-
parates from the flywheel, which is the onset of the decoupled phase.
The flywheel stops due to the resistive torque and remains stationary
until the initiation of the next coupled phase. The sticking of the
R. Hosseinie, et al.
Fig. 8. (a) Time Variations of angular accelerations of sail (θ̈ ) mast (φ̈ ) and flywheel (β̈ ). (b) Close up of one-period variations of the mast and flywheel angular
accelerations of the benchmarked turbine.
flywheel depends on the values of the selected parameters and the
magnitude of the wind speed. It is noticed that the sticking reduces
performance and therefore, its duration must be minimized for opti-
mization purposes.
Fig. 7 shows a one-period close up of the mast and flywheel angular
velocity variations with time. The separation and reattachment mo-
ments are clearly seen in this figure. At the separation point, the mast
leaves the flywheel and turns back while the flywheel sticks due to the
resistive torque. The reattachment of the mast to the flywheel is as-
sumed to be perfectly plastic, as mentioned before. The angular velo-
cities of mast and flywheel are being recalculated at the beginning of
the time step at which collision occurs, as explained by Eq. (27). This
causes a small numerical error in the magnitude of the angular velo-
cities, as is seen in Fig. 7.
Fig. 8-(a) depicts the time variations of the angular acceleration of
the sail (θ̈ ), mast (φ̈ ) and flywheel (β̈ ). A one-period time variations of
12
Energy Conversion and Management 205 (2020) 112452
the angular accelerations of mast and flywheel are shown in Fig. 8-(b),
as well. Here, two consecutive separation and reattachment moments
are seen. At the collision moment, an impulse in the acceleration of
flywheel is seen in this figure. as As noted before, the abrupt change is
due to the numerical error caused by the assumption in the MATLAB
code that the angular velocities of flywheel and mast are set to be equal
at the beginning of the time step in which reattachment happens.
Moreover, the acceleration decreases rapidly to its value before the
impulse. Although the numerical error does not significantly affect the
power and performance of the turbine and can be corrected by adding
an iterative process to find the reattachment moment by interpolation,
in the MATLAB code, which is left for a future study. Here, this error is
reduced by decreasing the step size.
Fig. 9 shows the drag (horizontal) and lift (vertical) components of
the aerodynamic force exerted on the sail. Eqs. (4) and (5) clearly show
that the lift and drag forces are functions of the sail angle and the wind
R. Hosseinie, et al.
Fig. 9. Drag (horizontal) and Lift (vertical) components of the aerodynamic force exerted on the sail by the wind for the benchmarked turbine.
Fig. 10. Time variations of the coupling torque between mast and flywheel (M1) and the power generated by the benchmarked turbine.
and sail velocities. The values of drag and lift forces increase and de-
crease during a time-period due to the variations of the sail angle re-
lative to the wind direction.
Fig. 10 illustrates the time variation of generated power and the
torque exerted by the mast on the flywheel (M1). This figure shows that
the generated power and M1 vanish precisely at the same time. This
happens at the decoupling phase of motion, where the mast becomes
detached from the flywheel. Although the power generation can con-
tinue in the decoupled phase of motion, it becomes zero here since the
flywheel immediately stops to rotate because of the high value selected
for the resistive torque. It is also notable that M1 cannot take negative
values since the mast pushes the flywheel only in the clockwise direc-
tion. The generated power, of course, stays positive all the time.
4.2. CFD validation
It should be pointed out that the equations of system dynamics are
solved using the lift and drag coefficients obtained from the steady
13
Energy Conversion and Management 205 (2020) 112452
experimental data. In other words, a quasi-steady approach is used, and
at each instance, the lift and drag forces are estimated based on the
instantaneous relative velocity and angle of attack using the experi-
mental correlations. However, it is known that the transient motion of
the sail affects the flow field and consequently the stress field acting on
the sail. To investigate the accuracy of the quasi-steady lift and drag
estimates, a series of CFD simulation is performed using the motion of
sail and mast as computed from the system dynamics. Then the varia-
tions of drag and lift forces through time are calculated and compared
to those obtained from the quasi-steady assumption. It should be noted
that in the CFD simulations, only the sail is considered. This is due to
the fact that the aerodynamic forces exerted on the slender mast are
negligible in comparison to those acting on the sail. However, the
motion of sail is governed by the mast position, as well as, the sail
orientation. That is, the center of rotation of sail is determined based on
the mast angle of rotation.
The contours of z-component of vorticity at 8 equally spaced in-
stances during one period of sail oscillations are shown in Fig. 11. The
R. Hosseinie, et al.
Fig. 11. The vorticity (z-component) contours at the symmetry plane of the sail after the creation of periodic pattern at 8 equally spaced time intervals (T is the
period of oscillation of the sail).
process of periodically vortex generation and shading can be seen from
this figure. As the plate initiates its rotation in the counterclockwise
direction at t = 0 s, a vortex at the trailing edge of the plate is created
that grows until the plate reaches its vertical position. Meanwhile, due
to the presence of the bulk airflow, the growing vortex is swept
downstream, and it detaches from the plate at about t = 5 T/8. During
the return cycle, when the plate starts to rotate in the clockwise di-
rection, a vortex is generated at the leading edge and experiences the
14
Energy Conversion and Management 205 (2020) 112452
same growing and detachment process as the trailing edge vortex.
These transient vortices are the major differences between the steady
flow pattern (similar to those utilized in the experimental setup) and
the actual transient case.
According to Section 3.2, the vertical component of wind velocity
relative to the sail, lφsinφ
̇ , can be neglected since the magnitude of sinφ
is small. Therefore, the effective angle of attack is approximately equal
π
to the apparent angle of attack. That is, α = 2 − θ , which is an
R. Hosseinie, et al.
Fig. 12. (a) The variations of the mast and sail rotation angles, and (b) lift and drag forces using CFD and quasi-steady approach.
approximation, as when the sail is horizontal (i.e., α = 0 ), the effective
angle of attack is not exactly zero. The presence of a slight angle of
attack is also seen at the time t = 0 sequence on the top of Fig. 11. At
this stage, however, the transfer of energy is low and consequently, it
does not affect the performance of the turbine.
The time variations of sail and mast rotation angles, as shown in
Fig. 12-(a) are imported into the CFD code. The sail angle of rotation θ
is given by a predefined function that is created in the CFD code;
however, the mast rotation φ (shown by the dashed red curve) is not
predefined and is computed from the system dynamic simulations. Here
a fitted polynomial curve (illustrated in Fig. 12-(a) with the black line)
is utilized to model the mast motion. It is seen that the polynomial of
15
Energy Conversion and Management 205 (2020) 112452
order 6 used for the fitting here describes the mast rotation angle well
with slight deviations. The polynomial fit is implemented in the ANSYS-
FLUENT code with a user-defined function (UDF).
The effect of unsteady flow pattern on the variations of lift and drag
forces and comparison with the quasi-steady data utilized in the code is
depicted in Fig. 12-(b). Despite the fact that the transient motion of sail
affects the flow field in comparison to the quasi-steady approach, it is
seen that the predictions of transient simulation for time evolutions of
lift and drag forces acting on the sail are remarkably close to those
obtained from the quasi-steady experimental data. This fortuitous
agreement could be due to the relatively long oscillations period (about
8 s) of the sail. In summary, the presented CFD study justifies the use of
R. Hosseinie, et al.
Fig. 13. The effect of variations of resistive torque on CP of the benchmarked turbine at different wind speeds (K = 10 N.m/rad).
Fig. 14. The effect of variation of resistive torque on the generated power of the benchmarked turbine at different wind speeds.
the quasi-steady experimentally obtained correlations for the drag and
lift forces for system dynamics calculations.
4.3. The effect of variation of parameters on behavior of the benchmark
turbine
The effect of the variations of operation parameters on the power
generation and CP of the benchmarked turbine is investigated. As noted
before, the time step size is set to 0.001 sec, and the total time length for
investigating the response of the turbine is set to 180 s. The simulation
results are depicted in Figs. 13–19. For each case studied, one of the
parameters is varied, and its effect on CP and generated power is in-
vestigated for a range of wind speeds. Other parameters of the turbine
are held constant at the values listed in Table 2. In some cases, alter-
native values for some of the parameters are used and these parameters
are listed in the figure captions. The generated power and the power
coefficient are averaged over time, where the first 1/5th of the time
16
Energy Conversion and Management 205 (2020) 112452
interval (that is, prior to the periodic behavior) is omitted in order to
eliminate the initial transient response of the turbine.
Fig. 13 illustrates the effect of the resistive torque on CP at different
wind speeds. It is seen that the maximum value and the working speed
range of the turbine increases, as the magnitude of resistive torque
increases. Roughly speaking, at low wind speeds, CP drops to zero be-
cause the resistive torque overtakes the moment produced by the
aerodynamic forces. At high speeds, CP drops suddenly due to the in-
stability of the turbine dynamics. The turbine is inherently an inverted
pendulum, which operates around its unstable equilibrium state. If the
sum of the aerodynamic moment and the moment exerted by the weight
exceed the resistive and spring torques, the turbine stops operating.
This is what we call here ‘instability’ of the turbine. For the turbine to
operate at its highest performance level, a proper balance between its
parameters is required.
Fig. 14 illustrates the effect of the variations of resistive torque on
the power generated by the turbine at different wind speeds. According
R. Hosseinie, et al.
Fig. 15. The effect of variations of spring constant on CP of the benchmarked turbine with J = 7 Kg.m2, Tresistive = 7 N.m, at different wind speeds.
Fig. 16. The effect of variations of sail oscillation period on CP of the benchmarked turbine at different wind speeds.
to the results, the generated power increases by increasing the wind
speed for any amount of resistive torque. However, the amount of re-
sistive torque affects the ‘cut in’ speed, i.e., the wind speed in which the
turbine starts to work and generates power. A turbine with higher re-
sistive torque generates power at higher wind speeds. The amount of
resistive torque also affects the rate of increase of generated power.
Fig. 15 illustrates the effect of spring constant on the power coef-
ficient of the turbine at different wind speeds. This figure shows that
increasing the spring constant decreases CP, but retains the stability up
to higher wind speeds. According to the results illustrated in Fig. 15, for
the low spring constants, the turbine has high CP, but it is very sus-
ceptible to instability and stability is lost at low wind speeds. For high
spring constants, the turbine has low CP, but has a vast margin of sta-
bility and can operate at much higher wind speeds.
Fig. 16 illustrates the effect of variations of the sail oscillation
period on CP. The effect is qualitatively similar to the effect of variation
17
Energy Conversion and Management 205 (2020) 112452
of the spring constant. A higher period decreases CP while it increases
the range of working speed and postpones the instability to higher wind
speeds. There seems to be a resonance near T = 4sec as CP increases to
its maximum values. The presented results show that for optimum
performance, the turbine parameters should set to resonance values.
Under the resonance condition, the turbine extracts the maximum
possible power from wind and maximizes the turbine performance. This
conclusion is clearly seen in Fig. 17 where the power outputs for dif-
ferent cases are shown. This figure shows that the power generated for
T = 4sec is the highest among the power generated for other sail per-
iods, at given wind speed.
Fig. 18 depicts the effect of flywheel inertia on CP of the turbine.
Increasing the inertia decreases the slope of the CP curve and flattens it.
Variation of flywheel inertia does not affect the peak magnitude of the
CP curve, as was seen for the other studied parameters.
Fig. 19 reveals the effect of variations of flywheel inertia on the
R. Hosseinie, et al.
Fig. 17. The effect of variations of sail oscillation period on the generated power of the benchmarked turbine at different wind speeds.
Fig. 18. The effect of variations of flywheel inertia on CP of the benchmarked turbine (L = 3 m) at different wind speeds.
generated power of the benchmarked turbine at different wind speeds.
It is seen that increasing the flywheel inertia increases the generated
power of the turbine.
4.4. Performance limits of the benchmarked turbine
The operation zones of the benchmarked turbine for different values
of resistive torque (Tresistive ) and spring constant (K ), at several wind
speeds, are shown in Fig. 20. It should be noted that the swinging
mechanism of the mast due to the sail rotation implies the mast to re-
turn at the dead-end positions due to very low drag at the end of the
stroke and the presence of spring moment, as well. However, in the
unstable cases, the large magnitude of the aerodynamic moments
causes the mast amplitude to increase continuously and eventually hit
the ground. At the other limit, high values of resistive torque in com-
parison to the aerodynamic moment may cause the turbine to stick. Due
18
Energy Conversion and Management 205 (2020) 112452
to the complex and interactive effect of parameters on the movement of
the turbine, the operating range is selected for stable operation.
As noted above, the boundary of the operation zone is identified by
the sudden performance drop resulting from two phenomena: (1) in-
stability of the turbine, and (2) sticking of the flywheel, as it is depicted
in Fig. 20. It must be pointed out that high values of spring constant
guarantee the stability of the turbine, but its performance drops because
of the small amplitude of oscillation. The interaction of spring constant,
resistive torque, and aerodynamic force in forming the boundaries of
the operation zone is, however, quite complex.
4.5. Performance analysis for the turbine of different sizes
In this section, the performance of the turbine of different sizes is
examined. The mast length and the sail area are variated, simulta-
neously. Other parameters of the turbine are selected to maximize CP.
R. Hosseinie, et al. Energy Conversion and Management 205 (2020) 112452

Fig. 19. The effect of variations of flywheel inertia on the generated power of the benchmarked turbine (L = 3 m) at different wind speeds.

the performance behavior of the conventional turbines, which at a

larger size, provides higher values of CP. Smaller models have max-
imum CP at lower speeds, and larger ones have maximum CP at higher
speeds.

5. Concluding remarks and future works

In this work, a new design of a swinging sail wind turbine for har-
vesting wind energy, particularly for low wind speeds, was proposed.
The dynamical equations of the proposed turbine were derived and
numerically analyzed using a developed computer code. A set of em-
pirical fit for the aerodynamic forces that were based on the quasi-
steady simulations was used in the simulation. A series of unsteady CFD
simulations with the use of moving mesh was also performed, and the
transient drag and lift forces acting on the sail were evaluated. It was
shown that the quasi-steady correlations used are in good agreement
with the transient simulation results.
Based on the presented results, the following conclusions are drawn:

Fig. 20. The operation zone of the benchmarked turbine for different values of
resistive torque (Tresistive ) and spring constant (K ) at several wind speeds.
• The simulation results showed that the new swinging sail turbine is
suitable for wind energy harvesting at low wind speeds.
• In addition to the structural simplicity of the new swinging sail
Table 3 turbine, the feedback control applied to the sail makes this design
Selected parameters for each turbine size. adaptive and versatile.
Quantity Notation Value Units • The flywheel/ratchet combination used converts the oscillating
motion into rectified and – if well-tuned – roughly uniform rota-
Mast length l 1 2 2.5 3 3.5 m tional speed, which is appropriate for conventional alternators for
Sail Area A 1.28 2 2.88 3.92 5.12 m2 electrical power generation.
Sail oscillation period
Spring constant
T
K
7
5
7
10
7
20
7
30
7
40
s
N.m/rad • CP values of the new design are comparable with micro-sized os-
Resistive Torque Tresistive 0.5 1 3 8 15 N.m cillating wing wind turbines working at low wind speeds (see for
Flywheel Inertia J 3 5 10 30 70 kg.m2 example, Siala and Liburdy, 2015 [47]). However, the turbine per-
formance can be enhanced by optimizing its parameters, which is
left as a future study.
This maximization is performed by trial and error simulations. The
selected parameters for each turbine size are tabulated in Table 3. It is
• The generated power and CP of the swinging sail turbine increase by
increasing its size. This trend matches the behavior of other types of
seen that the sail area, flywheel inertia, and torsion spring constant wind turbines including the horizontal axis wind turbines.
increased by the increase of the mast length.
The variations of CP for the various turbine sizes at different wind
• The simulation results showed that at high wind speeds, CP drops
due to the turbine instability. However, by increasing the turbine
speeds are shown in Fig. 21. This figure shows that the values of CP of size, its operating range can be extended to higher wind speeds.
the larger turbines are higher. In addition, the larger turbines have
stable operation in a wider range of wind speeds. This trend resembles
• The structure and mechanism of the new swinging sail turbine de-
sign are simple so that it can be fabricated at low cost, which makes

19
R. Hosseinie, et al.
Fig. 21. Variations of CP for the turbine of several sizes at different wind speeds.
it suitable for urban and domestic distributed power generation.
• The sail orientation control system is of great importance in this
design. This system is provided with feedback signals from sail and
mast to command the servomotor for tracking the desired sail
movement. Design and modeling of the control system are left for a
future study.
• The turbine is highly sensitive to the wind direction, and the sail
must be appropriately adjusted to face the wind. This can be
maintained by the deployment of a proper rudder or sensor/motor
mechanism to adjust the yaw angle of the sail.
• The presented results provide a guideline for the fabrication of a
prototype of the new swinging sail turbine to experimentally assess
its performance for further investigations and developments.
In our future work, the goal is to develop the next versions of this
turbine following the bio-inspiration guidelines. Mimicking the oscil-
lation of trees in the wind and flapping of insects, our idea for devel-
opment is a spatially moving multi-sail turbine with a flexible bending
mast. This biomimetic modification is expected to maintain the ability
to extract the maximum possible amounts of energy from the wind in
any direction and increase the performance of the wind energy con-
version.
CRediT authorship contribution statement
Radmarz Hosseinie: Conceptualization, Supervision, Methodology,
Software, Investigation, Writing - original draft. Reza Roohi:
Methodology, Investigation, Software, Investigation, Validation.
Goodarz Ahmadi: Supervision, Writing - review & editing, Software,
Investigation.
Declaration of Competing Interest
The authors declare that they have no known competing financial
interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influ-
ence the work reported in this paper.
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