Unsteady Flow Numerical Simulation of Vertical Axis Wind Turbine

This paper sets up model of the flow field for vertical axis wind turbine based on airfoil DU93-W–210. FLUENT is used to solve the two dimensional unsteady incompressible N-S equations with RNG κ-ɛ turbulence model. COUPLE algorithm and sliding mesh is used to simulate the 2-D unsteady flow field of the wind turbine. The rotor power coefficient of wind energy and the variation of the wind turbine's total torque are analyzed under the variation of varied blade installation angle and chord length. As the result shows, the power coefficient of wind energy at the best installation angle is increased by 2%, and the power coefficient of wind energy in the best solidity is increased by 15%.