Active control of the vertical axis wind turbine by the association of flapping wings to their blades

From standpoint of design, the vertical axis wind turbines VAWT are less complex. But, their efficiency still relatively weak compared to horizontal axis turbines. The competitiveness of these systems will depend on their level of performance, which in turn, is directly tributary to the fluid flow manner through the turbine. However, the dynamic stall and the generated vortices by the blades, compromise highly the optimum harvesting of the power. In order to mastering and controlling the emergence of these vortices and these wakes, the present work proposes a dynamic control device which consists in the association to each turbine blade, a couple of flapping wings, in biplane configuration. It is presented first, the geometric definition of the proposed device and its kinematics. Secondly, the adopted approach in the handling of the problem that emphasizes the computing technique and the meshing strategy. It is found that the proposed model allows; first, an excellent reattachment of the boundary layer and great attenuation of the vortices magnitude around the blades, and secondly, a remarkable reduction of the generated wakes, then avoiding the interaction of the disturbed flow by different turbine blades. (C) 2015 Published by Elsevier B.V. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creavativecommons.org/licesses/by-nc-nd/4.0/). Peer-review under responsibility of the Conference Program Chairs