Analysis of Wind turbine Aerodynamics performance through fluid dynamics computacional simulation

Abstract

Nowadays the need for shifting from fossil fuel to renewable energy sources has become a priority. The burn of fossil fuels causes several damages to the society, such as environmental degradation and problems to the human health because of the air pollution.The development of renewable and sustainable sources of energy such as wind and solar became an alternative solution to these problems. The use of wind turbines has been shown to be an important clean renewable energy source. However, to properly develop wind turbine power generation, more advanced design tools were needed. So, the study of the air flow through these turbines using computacional fluid dynamics became widespread as a way to analyse the aerodynamics and performance of these devices.In the current project, we will employ the comercial software ANSYS FLUENT to perform the computacional simulation of the air flow through a horizontal axis, two-blade wind turbine, based on the NREL Unsteady Aerodynamics Experiment Phase VI. We will analyse, and compare our results to previously published data, also obtained by means of numerical simulations. We will conclude with simulations of the flow through a horizontal axis three-blades wind turbine and will compare its performance to that of the two-blades wind turbine, highlighting the advantages and disadvantages of each of the designs.