Performance Enhancement of a Darrieus Vertical Axis Wind Turbine using Divergent Ducting System

Abstract

Ducting system is an effective way to potentially augment the performance of wind turbine for applications in building architectures. This paper is aimed to study one of the possible enhancement method of the vertical axis wind turbine performance. It is characterized by adding divergent duct to facilitate imparting more flow rate. The divergent duct was designed and adapted with wind turbine. The system was modelled and simulated analytically and numerically. A computer program built in MATLAB 16 to simulate the performance of system. The performance and flow are also solved numerically using ANSYS-FLUENT 17.2. Two opening angles of the divergent -duct were employed to study the behavior of air flow through divergent duct and results were compared with base vertical axis wind turbine. The duct turbine with a straight wall type diffuser demonstrate power coefficient augmentation by 24.2% and 9.09% for opening angle 20 and 12 respectively. The optimum half opening angle was attained for the diffuser. The diffuser’s length of a half of the throat opening is recommended, and its angle of opening is 20. The diffuser was located in a stream-was direction that adequately aligned with the center of the vertical axis wind turbine. Results showed a reasonable influence on the performance of wind turbine. This technology may be used in gates and in urban areas with a relatively low wind speed regime.

Keywords

• VAWT
• divergent wind turbine
• MATLAB
• coefficient of performance
• low wind speed