NUMERICAL INVESTIGATION OF THE EFFECT OF BLADE AIRFOILS ON A VERTICAL AXIS WIND TURBINE

In this study, energy performance and aerodynamic forces acted on a vertical-axis Darrieus wind turbine (VAWT) have been examined by using computational fluid dynamics (CFD) program. Numerical investigation is conducted on a blade fixed pitch VAWT using NACA0021, NACA0015, NACA5520 and Clark-Y airfoils as a blade profile to assess its performance, and these four airfoils were compared with each other's. Numerical simulation is done for two-dimensional unsteady flow around the VAWT model by using Ansys-Fluent program which solves Reynolds averaged Navier-Stokes equations. Considered numerical results, NACA5520 can be employed to generate first movement; in addition, the maximum average power coefficient has been obtained for NACA0021.