Performance comparison of a vertical axis wind turbine using commercial and open source computational fluid dynamics based codes

Abstract

Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) is a very effective tool to analyse the flow characteristics within and around different mechanical artifacts such as automotive vehicles, turbomachines etc. CFD based analysis provides beneficial information about the flow behavior within a component, hence reducing the costs involved in the design process of that component. This has led the researchers to develop an Open Source CFD code, commonly known as Open Field Operation and Manipulation, or OpenFOAM. The development of OpenFOAM has made scientific research in the field of fluid dynamics available for almost no cost. Designers who rely on commercial CFD packages are hesitant on using Open Source CFD codes because of accuracy. They need to be convinced by proving its simulation capability as compared to any commercial CFD package. Hence, this study investigate the flow phenomenon in the vicinity of a Vertical Axis Wind Turbine (VAWT), using such open source code combinations that yields reasonably accurate results, which can be compared against any commercial CFD code.