Energy Conversion Efficiency of Wavy Conical Wind Energy Capture Structure

Abstract

In order to improve the energy harvesting efficiency of the wind energy capture structure, this paper proposes a novel wavy conical bladeless wind energy capture structure, and establishes a mathematical model for energy conversion of the wavy conical wind energy capture structure. The Reynolds-averaged N-S equations in combination with the SST k-ω turbulence model is used to numerically simulate the vortex-induced vibration response of the energy capture structure, and analyze the effects of mass ratio and damping ratio on the vortex-induced vibration response and wind energy conversion efficiency of the wavy conical wind energy capture structure. The results show that the wavy conical energy capture structure with a mass ratio of m*=2 and a damping ratio of ζ=0.05 can obtain a wider lock-in interval and higher energy conversion efficiency. It is also found that the mass damping ratio m*ζ directly affects the energy conversion efficiency, a suitable combination of m*ζ can improve the energy conversion efficiency, with an average energy conversion efficiency of nearly 31% higher at m*ζ=0.10 than at m*ζ=0.05. The research results can provide theoretical support for the improvement of the energy conversion efficiency of bladeless wind turbines.

Keywords

• energy conversion
• vortex-induced vibration
• mass ratio
• damping ratio
• wavy conical structure