Achieving high energy extraction with multiple vertical axis wind turbines

垂直轴风力涡轮机（VAWT）的一个新发现的优点是，它们的转子可以放置在一起而不会显着损失效率。实验结果表明，隔4个转子直径的涡轮性能与隔涡轮一样好。由多个VAWT组成的风电场的功率提取应明显高于现有的利用水平轴风力发电机（HAWT）的风电场。为了进一步证明这一概念，可以利用计算流体动力学（CFD），但需要改进CFD的现状，以达到模拟多个VAWT所需的精度和合理的计算时间。作者的初步分析也表明，面对风向的三台涡轮机的功率系数有所增加，但影响功率增加的参数仍有待确定。本文所述的研究计划将开发一个精确、快速的CFD模拟工具来研究多个VAWT的相互作用。需要这个仿真工具来演示和量化在近距离使用多个VAWT的好处。对与紧密堆积的VAWT相关的现象的理解可以导致风能工业的革命，因为从风力发电场提取的能量可以显着增加。该研究项目将在CFD和风能领域培养2名博士生和3名硕士生。

A newly discovered advantage of vertical axis wind turbines (VAWT) is that their rotors can be placed close together without significant loss of efficiency. Experimental results indicate that turbines separated by a distance of 4 rotor diameters perform as well as isolated turbines. The power extraction of a wind farm composed of multiple VAWT should be significantly higher than the existing wind farms exploiting horizontal axis wind turbines (HAWT). To further demonstrate this concept, computational fluid dynamics (CFD) can be utilized but the current state of CFD needs to be improved to achieve the required accuracy and reasonable computing time to simulate multiple VAWT. An initial analysis by the author has also shown an increase of the power coefficient for three turbines facing the wind direction, nevertheless the parameters that affect the increase in power remain to be determined. The research program described in this proposal will develop an accurate and fast CFD simulation tool to study multiple VAWT interaction. This simulation tool is needed to demonstrate and to quantify the benefit of using multiple VAWT in close proximity. The understanding of the phenomena related to closely packed VAWT can lead to a revolution in the wind energy industry because energy extract from wind farms can be significantly increased. This research program will contribute by training two PhD students and three master students in the field of CFD and wind energy.