Experimental and numerical studies of a wind turbine with a flanged-diffuser shroud in sinusoidally oscillating velocity wind

Abstract

The wind turbines with a flanged-diffuser shroud-so called "wind-lens turbine"- are developed as one of high performance wind turbines by Ohya et al. The steady and unsteady wind turbine performances are investigated in the paper. The flow structure around the compact-type wind lens turbine is made clear by PIV and CFD in steady wind. Also, that turbine show higher efficiency than the conventional wind turbine. Furthermore, the performances of the conventional wind turbine and the compact-type wind-lens turbine in unsteady wind are experimentally and numerically investigated. Experimental and numerical examples are presented to demonstrate the dependence of frequency of the harmonic oscillating velocity wind on the power coefficients. Consequently, using the present designed rotor, the compact-type wind-lens turbine shows better performance than the only rotor one in sinusoidally oscillating velocity wind. Moreover, the numerical estimation can predict the power coefficients for the fluctuating flows in 94 to 102% of accuracy. © 2012 The Japan Society of Mechanical Engineers.