Development of the flow model to determine the placement of the vertical axis wind turbine (VAWT) in the Padjadjaran University area

Abstract

The wind in urban areas is turbulent and fast changes in direction and velocity. The recent studies indicate that Vertical Axis Wind Turbine (VAWT) is suitable to install in urban areas, especially for small scale VAWT application. The main purpose of this study is to predict the best possible placement of VAWT in the built environment, in case of Padjadjaran University area which is located in an urban area. This study was utilized with Computational Fluid Dynamics to create flow model in wind resource assessment. The geometry model was combined between the natural land form of terrain and man-made environment. Wind direction was predominantly from east and west almost the year at average wind speed 3.9?m/s. This works presented two main possible locations in the placement of the VAWT, in the near ground surface where obstacles created the wind strengthening effect and in the rooftop where an array of obstacles that closely and co-linier with wind direction which was the first obstacle basically blocked the wind.