Validation of High-Order Wall-Resolved Large-Eddy Simulation of Vertical-Axis Wind Turbines

A high-order Wall-Resolved Implicit Large Eddy Simulation (WR-ILES) method is used to simulate a vertical-axis wind turbine in 2D and 3D. In this work, we perform these simulations at nearly full-scale Reynolds numbers (O(105)). The high-order simulations are compared to experimental wind tunnel data, where the turbine blades were outfitted with pressure sensors. The wind turbine is also simulated with a low-order, finite volume method found in Open FOAM. The results of tangential forces are compared and it is shown that both methods adequately estimate the forces in the upwind section of the blade. The flow structure at various time instances is shown in 2D and 3D.