Numerical Simulation of Unsteady Flow for Variable-Pitch Vertical Axis Wind Turbine

Abstract

Using computational fluid dynamics (CFD) software Fluent, numerical simulation for unsteady flow around the vertical axis wind turbine (VAWT) was performed, which was based on the UDF controlled sliding meshes method. And SST k-ω turbulent model and SIMPLE algorithm were used to solve the unsteady incompressible N-S equation. Velocity magnitude profile, pressure, the blade force and the torque had been obtained by doing this. The result shows this method can effectively simulate the unsteady flow field performance of the variable-pitch vertical axis wind turbine, and it provides a new method for variable-pitch vertical axis wind turbine’s simulations.