Numerical simulation in vertical wind axis turbine with pitch controlled blades

Abstract

Wind energy is more and more used as a renewable energy source character. The present wind turbine is a small one which allows to be used on roofs or in gardens to light small areas like publicity boards, parking, roads or for water pumping, heating... The present turbine has a vertical axis. Each turbine blade combines a rotating movement around its own axis and around the main rotor axis. Due to this combination of movements, flow around this turbine is highly unsteady and needs to be modeled by unsteady calculation. One of the main problems of such geometry is to simulate the two combined movements. The present work is an extended study of one’s made in 2009. In the previous study, some results like contours of pressure and velocity fields were presented for elliptic blades for one specific constant rotational speed and benefits of combined rotating blades was shown. The present paper points up the influence of two different blades geometries for different rotational speeds, different blade stagger angles and different Reynolds numbers related to a wider range of wind speeds.