Aerodynamic analysis for camber effect in vertical wind turbine system

Abstract

The Vertical Axis Wind Turbine (VAWT) has advantages over Horizontal Axis Wind Turbine (HAWT) that it allows less chance to be degraded independent of wind direction and turbine can be operated even at the low wind speed. The objective of this study is to analyze aerodynamics of the VAWT airfoil and investigate the ideal shape of airfoil, more specifically cambers. The analysis of aerodynamic characteristics with various cambers has been performed using numerical simulation with CFD software. As the numerical simulation discloses local physical features around wind turbine, aerodynamic performance such as lift, drag and torque are computed for single airfoil rotation and multiple airfoil rotation cases. Through this study more effective airfoil shape is suggested based vortex-airfoil interaction studies. Copyright © 2011 by ASME.