CFD Modeling of a Straight Blade Vertical Axis Wind Turbine (SB-VAWT)

Abstract

In the last few decades, the consumption of energy has been significantlyincreased. As energy sources in the world are being depleted, windenergy becomes one of the most promising and reliable sources ofenergy. In this paper a 2-D straight blade vertical axis wind turbineis analyzed using Fluent in order to compare its performance at differentmodeling characteristics. A sliding mesh technique is used in theanalysis and the performance is measured by the power coefficient.The convergence is assessed by the torque profile and it is foundthat there is a significant effect of the tip speed ratio on theturbine performance.