Investigate the Feasibility of High Aspect Ratio Vertical Axis Wind Turbine

The paper aims to investigate the performance of the high aspect ratio vertical axis wind turbine with numerical method and to present some experimental results. Aerodynamics with numerical method is a major prospect of the investigation. Computational fluid dynamic software, ANSYSCFX, is employed to analyze drag force generated from the influence of blade shape. Two types of turbine blades have been investigated with aerodynamics prospects, namely shape-design model and mechanism model. Power coefficient of each models are calculated and compared. Turning force to reverse force ratio has been used to compare different shapes of the turbine blade. It has been found that the mechanism model, with power coefficient of 16.2 per cent, offers better capability of harnessing wind energy than shape-design model.