Large scale wind turbines and wind farms continue to evolve mounting 94.1GW of the electrical grid capacity in 2007 and expected to reach 160.0GW in 2010 according to World Wind Energy Association. They commence to play a vital role in the quest for renewable and sustainable energy. They are impressive structures of human responsiveness to, and awareness of, the depleting fossil fuel resources. Early generation wind turbines (windmills) were used as kinetic energy transformers and today generate 1/5 of the Denmark’s electricity and planned to double the current German grid capacity by reaching 12.5% by year 2010. Wind energy is plentiful (72 TW is estimated to be commercially viable) and clean while their intensive capital costs and maintenance fees still bar their widespread deployment in the developing world. Additionally, there are technological challenges in the rotor operating characteristics, fatigue load, and noise in meeting reliability and safety standards. Newer inventions, e.g., downstream wind turbines and flapping rotor blades, are sought to absorb a larger portion of the cost attributable to unrestrained lower cost yaw mechanisms, reduction in the moving parts, and noise reduction thereby reducing maintenance. In this work, numerical analysis of the downstream wind turbine blade is conducted. In particular, the interaction between the tower and the rotor passage is investigated. Circular cross sectional tower and aerofoil shapes are considered in a staggered configuration and under cross-stream motion. The resulting blade static pressure and aerodynamic forces are investigated at different incident wind angles and wind speeds. Comparison of the flow field results against the conventional upstream wind turbine is also conducted. The wind flow is considered to be transient, incompressible, viscous Navier-Stokes and turbulent. The k-ε model is utilized as the turbulence closure. The passage of the rotor blade is governed by ALE and is represented numerically as a sliding mesh against the upstream fixed tower domain. Both the blade and tower cross sections are padded with a boundary layer mesh to accurately capture the viscous forces while several levels of refinement were implemented throughout the domain to assess and avoid the mesh dependence.
Skip Nav Destination
ASME 2008 Fluids Engineering Division Summer Meeting collocated with the Heat Transfer, Energy Sustainability, and 3rd Energy Nanotechnology Conferences
August 10–14, 2008
Jacksonville, Florida, USA
Conference Sponsors:
- Fluids Engineering Division
ISBN:
978-0-7918-4840-1
PROCEEDINGS PAPER
Simulation of Flow Field on a Large Scale Wind Turbine
I. Janajreh,
I. Janajreh
Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA
Search for other works by this author on:
C. Ghenai
C. Ghenai
Florida Atlantic University, Boca Raton, FL
Search for other works by this author on:
I. Janajreh
Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA
C. Ghenai
Florida Atlantic University, Boca Raton, FL
Paper No:
FEDSM2008-55189, pp. 741-746; 6 pages
Published Online:
June 30, 2009
Citation
Janajreh, I, & Ghenai, C. "Simulation of Flow Field on a Large Scale Wind Turbine." Proceedings of the ASME 2008 Fluids Engineering Division Summer Meeting collocated with the Heat Transfer, Energy Sustainability, and 3rd Energy Nanotechnology Conferences. Volume 1: Symposia, Parts A and B. Jacksonville, Florida, USA. August 10–14, 2008. pp. 741-746. ASME. https://doi.org/10.1115/FEDSM2008-55189
Download citation file:
4
Views
Related Proceedings Papers
Related Articles
Single-Phase Cascaded Grid Connected Multilevel Inverter for Interfacing Renewable Energy Sources With Microgrid
J. Sol. Energy Eng (October,2015)
A Computational Model to Simulate Thunderstorm Downbursts for Wind Turbine Loads Analysis
J. Sol. Energy Eng (April,2023)
Study of Aerodynamic Performance and Power Output for Residential-Scale Wind Turbines
J. Energy Resour. Technol (January,2021)
Related Chapters
A Utility Perspective of Wind Energy
Wind Turbine Technology: Fundamental Concepts in Wind Turbine Engineering, Second Edition
Wind Turbine Aerodynamics Part B: Turbine Blade Flow Fields
Wind Turbine Technology: Fundamental Concepts in Wind Turbine Engineering, Second Edition
The Context of Thermal Power Plant Water Usage
Thermal Power Plant Cooling: Context and Engineering