COMPUTATIONAL FLUID DYNAMICS ANALYSIS OF HORIZONTAL AXIS WIND TURBINES PERFORMANCE

Abstract

CFD has become the method of choice in the design of many aerospace, automotive, and industrial components and processes in which fluid or gas flow play a major role. This paper presents the performance analysis of the Horizontal Axis Wind Turbine (HAWT) using CFD modeling, comparing with experimental data obtained from the wind turbine experiments carried out by Vermeer. The 3-D CFD calculations is done for the subsonic flow over a wind turbine rotor at various values of tip speed ratio and operating at a Reynolds number of 200,000. In this analysis, three CFD turbulence models Spalart Allmaras, k-𝜔 and Transitional SST are performed to evaluate the thrust coefficient and power coefficient that agree with the experimental data of wind turbine. The work also uses the wind turbine as an example to discuss the verification of experimental results by using CFD.