Performance Prediction of a Horizontal Axis Wind Turbine by Use of CFD

Abstract

Computational fluid dynamics (CFD) modeling and experiments have both advantages and disadvantages. Doing both can be complementary, and we can expect more effective understanding of the phenomenon. CFD is generally difficult to obtain reliable results over the wide range when compared with the experiment. However, it is possible to obtain useful detailed results in any condition based on verification using the experimental results. Moreover, experiments are not necessarily deliver correct results for any arbitrary condition due to limitations of the experimental equipments, the measurement errors and the problems with measurement systems. In this paper, the efficiency of a wind turbine is proposed, and the performance can be compared with the other turbomachineries, which is different from the traditional wind turbine factors, that is, the power coefficient, the torque coefficient, the thrust coefficient and so on. The characteristics of wind turbine are evaluated by combining simple approximate analysis based on wing section, CFD simulations and experimental results.