Study on the aerodynamic performance of blade airfoil of vertical axis wind turbine at low reynolds number

The utilization efficiency of wind energy is directly affected by airfoil aerodynamic performance. So, it is important to study it. In this study, CFD software is used to analyze the aerodynamic performance of lift type vertical axis wind turbines at low Reynolds number. Three types of airfoil which are NACA2414, NACA4414 and NACA6414, are analyzed by numerical simulation, mainly study the influence of relative camber airfoil on wind turbine aerodynamic performance under different angle of attack and the change rule of airfoil aerodynamic parameters and the state of streaming for these three types of airfoil under different angle of attack is obtained. The result shows that the lift coefficient of airfoil under different Angle of attack and lift-drag ratio will increase, with relative camber airfoil increasing,the airfoil thickness keeping stable,but the airfoil drag coefficient has no obvious change, it will help the optimal design of airfoils for vertical axis wind turbines. © 2013 Asian Network for Scientific Information.