Numerical Simulation of Unsteady Flow and Aerodynamic Performance of Vertical Axis Wind Turbines with LES

The goal of this investigation is to develop high performance Vertical Axis Wind Turbines (hereafter VAWT) for clean energy supply systems. For this purpose, we attempted to simulate flow around a VAWT with Large Eddy Simulation (LES). Since the angles of attack of VAWT are widely changed during the rotor rotation, large scale separation and interaction between the turbulent wakes are occurred [1]-[3]. Therefore, unsteady and high accuracy simulation is necessary to simulate flow around a VAWT. LES with a sliding mesh technique was utilised to solve the complicated flow around the VAWT. The numerical results show the large separation occurred and unsteady aerodynamic forces were observed in the wake of VAWT.