Improvement of Vertical Axis Wind Turbine Performance Using Different J-shaped Profiles

In this study, the self-starting of a Darrieus vertical axis wind turbines (VAWT) is enhanced using a J-Shaped airfoil profile. The paper investigated the performance of VAWT with the J-shaped blades. Since the J-shaped blades utilize the lift and drag forces simultaneously, the turbine performance at low tip speed ratios (TSRs) enhances. Thus, it is expected that using these blades improves the starting torque and output power. The main goal in this study is to find an optimum J-shaped profile acquiring the best performance of wind turbine. For this purpose, a 3kW J-Shaped straight-bladed Darrieus type VAWT is investigated numerically using OpenFOAM computational fluid dynamic package. It employs the finite volume method to solve the Navier-Stokes equations. The J-Shaped profile is designed by means of eliminating a fraction of pressure side of Du 06-W-200 airfoil. The results indicate that the performance of turbine is optimized for J-shaped profile which eliminates the pressure side of airfoil from the maximum thickness toward the trailing edge. Moreover, employing this J-Shaped profile, the wind turbine performance is intensified TSRs and self-starting of turbine is improved.