A computational assessment of the aerodynamic performance of a tilted Darrieus wind turbine

• Aerodynamic performance of a tilted wind turbine is investigated with a CFD model.
• Two tilt angles, i.e. 10° and 20°, are investigated.
• Model validation experimental data of a non-tilted rotor are provided.
• Sensible decrease in the power production is observed for increasing tilt angles.
• Comprehensive physical interpretations of the results are provided.

The aerodynamic performance of a Darrieus wind turbine operating with the rotation axis tilted with respect to the free-stream wind speed is investigated in this paper. An Unsteady Reynolds Averaged Navier Stokes (URANS) Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) model is proposed in order to provide wind turbine manufacturers with a reliable simulation tool to forecast the power conversion characteristics of vertical axis wind turbine prototypes that operate in tilted conditions. The outputs of the model are compared against experimental performance of a non-tilted rotor corrected to the standard sea level conditions. Two different tilted configurations are studied (i.e., a tilt angle of 10°10° and 20°20°) and the aerodynamic performance is presented in terms of the mechanical power production and the power coefficient. A sensible decrease in the power production is observed for increasing tilt angles. Comprehensive physical interpretations of the results are provided, considering also the predictions of a methodology based on semi-empirical methods.