Experimental and Numerical Investigations on the Aerodynamic Performance of a Hinged Bladed Vertical Axis Wind Turbine

One of the disadvantages of drag driven vertical axis wind turbines, is low aerodynamic performance of the turbine which is mainly due to adverse torque of the returning blade. A recently introduced design suggests using opening/closing blades for the rotor to eliminate the negative torque of the returning blade. In this study, the aerodynamic performance of the newly proposed turbine has been investigated experimentally and numerically. The experimental measurements are performed in a subsonic open-jet type wind tunnel facility. However, the numerical simulations are performed using the Ansys-Fluent commercial software, using the Multiple Reference Frame model (MRF). The effects of the number of blades (3, 4 and 6-bladed), end plates and turbulence intensity on the torque and power coefficients are examined in details, in several Reynolds numbers. Results show that the new rotor has no negative torque in one complete revolution and the 3-bladed rotor has the best aerodynamic performance, in a manner that, it reaches a maximum power coefficient of 0.21 at TSR=0.5. Although increasing the number of blades decreases the output torque oscillations, it also decreases the average power coefficient of the rotor. Results also show that, Reynolds number does not have significant effects on the average power coefficients of the rotors, in the studied range of Reynolds numbers, 7.7×104 ≤ Re ≤ 1.2×105.