Horizontal Axis Wind Turbine (HAWT), Paper Numerical Validation, ANSYS Fluent

Description

Description

This project numerically simulates and validates a horizontal axis wind turbine based on the paper “CFD Investigation on the aerodynamic characteristics of a small-sized wind turbine of NREL PHASE VI operating with a stall-regulated method” in ANSYS Fluent software.

Horizontal Axis Wind Turbines (HAWTs) are the most common type of wind turbine used for producing electricity. They consist of a rotor with two or more blades that rotate around a horizontal axis. The principle of a HAWT is simple: as wind passes over the blades, it creates a difference in air pressure between the upper and lower surfaces of the blades. This pressure difference generates lift and drag forces, causing the rotor to spin. The rotor is connected to a generator, typically through a gearbox, which converts the mechanical energy of the spinning rotor into electrical energy.

The geometry is designed in Design Modeler then meshed in ANSYS Meshing with 5,466,728 unstructured cells.

Methodology

A cylindrical domain around the blades is defined as the moving part which is simulated by Moving Reference Frame (MRF). We validated simulating the case in which the air passes over the turbine and duct at a speed of 13m/s. Also the speed of rotation of the turbine is considered 72 rpm and the turbulence of the flow is simulated via Realizable k-epsilon model with standard wall function.

Conclusion

In this project Moment (torque) is monitored and obtained as the factor to show validity the simulation with  the paper. The moment with the unit [N.m] changes with the wind speed as shown below. Our simulation is approximately closed to the numerical results presented in the paper especially in lower wind speed.

The error increases as the wind speed increase, but it should be noted that the torque attitude with changing the wind speed is the same with the numerical and experimental results presented in the paper.