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Computational Fluid Dynamic Modelling of a Small-Scale Vertical Axis Wind Turbine
Chase, Ashley Victoria
Chase, Ashley Victoria
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Abstract
A small scale vertical axis wind turbine with bamboo blades was built at the University of Vermont in 2014. Prior to 2016, the efficiency of the wind turbine was not fully quantified. Thus, it was desirable to estimate the efficiency using computational fluid dynamic models. Thus, a SolidWorks file of the geometry was created and imported into SimScale, a cloud based CFD software, for analysis. Steady-state, quasi 2D simulations of the geometry were simulated with a constant unidirectional wind flow to mimic wind tunnel testing conditions. Simultaneously, a UVM Senior Design team was completing a physical wind tunnel test of the bamboo wind turbine. From the simulations the VAWT was found to have a range of efficiencies from 0-0.55% at TSR’s of 0.06-0.11, while from the wind tunnel test the efficiencies were in the 0-0.13% range for TSR’s of 0-0.125. Though the simulations calculate a slightly higher efficiency of the wind turbine than physically obtained data, they provide a good estimate. Because the wind turbine’s efficiency is < 1%, future work will be done with CFD to test altered geometries for the bamboo VAWT to improve its’ performance.
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2017-01-01
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Thesis_avchase.pdf
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