Performance Improvement of Straight Darrieus Type Wind Turbine with Setting Outer Flow Guides

Abstract

To improve the performance of the straight Darrieus type wind turbine, we attached the outer flow guides around the wind turbine and performed both the wind tunnel experiments and 2D numerical simulations. The flow guides are simple rectangular plate and have the same height with the wing span. The guide plates were attached at regular intervals radially. The number of guide plate was changed from 3 to 5, and then the power coefficients of the wind turbine were compared. As results, the condition with the 5 guide plates showed the highest power coefficient. In other wind direction condition, when a plate is mounted parallel to main flow showed the highest power coefficient. When the clearance between the guide plate and the wing is changed in the same total diameter, the middle clearance condition showed the highest power coefficient in consideration.