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Published September 2016 | Published
Journal Article Open

Performance enhancement of downstream vertical-axis wind turbines

Abstract

Increased power production is observed in downstream vertical-axis wind turbines (VAWTs) when positioned offset from the wake of upstream turbines. This effect is found to exist in both laboratory and field environments with pairs of co- and counter-rotating turbines, respectively. It is hypothesized that the observed production enhancement is due to flow acceleration adjacent to the upstream turbine due to bluff body blockage, which would increase the incident freestream velocity on appropriately positioned downstream turbines. A low-order model combining potential flow and actuator disk theory captures this effect. Additional laboratory and field experiments further validate the predictive capabilities of the model. Finally, an evolutionary algorithm reveals patterns in optimized VAWT arrays with various numbers of turbines. A "truss-shaped" array is identified as a promising configuration to optimize energy extraction in VAWT wind farms by maximizing the performance enhancement of downstream turbines.

Additional Information

© 2016 AIP Publishing. Received 27 May 2016; accepted 15 September 2016; published online 4 October 2016. The authors gratefully acknowledge the funding from the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation through Grant No. 2645, the National Science Foundation Energy for Sustainability program through Grant No. CBET-0725164, and the Office of Naval Research through Grant No. N000141211047.

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August 20, 2023
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