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Published January 2017 | Supplemental Material + Published
Journal Article Open

Low order physical models of vertical axis wind turbines

Abstract

In order to examine the ability of low-order physical models of vertical axis wind turbines to accurately reproduce key flow characteristics, experimental data are presented for the mean flow patterns and turbulence spectra associated with pairs of rotating turbines, rotating solid cylinders, and stationary porous flat plates (of both uniform and non-uniform porosities). The experiments were conducted at a nominal model-diameter Reynolds number of 600 and rotation tip speed ratios between 0 and 6. By comparing the induced flow fields of the different models both qualitatively and quantitatively, it was concluded that the two dimensional horizontal mean flow fields induced by the porous flat plates were quantitatively similar to those induced by slowly rotating turbine models. However, over the range of the experimental parameters examined, the porous flat plates were unable to produce vertical flows similar to those associated with the slowly rotating turbine models. Conversely, the moderately rotating cylinders induced three dimensional mean flow fields quantitatively similar to those induced by rapidly rotating turbine models. These findings have implications for both laboratory experiments and numerical simulations, which have previously used analogous low order models in order to reduce experimental/computational costs. Specifically, over the range of parameters examined, the comparison between induced flow fields of the different model fidelities allows identification of the lowest cost model for which the specific goals of a study can be obtained, to within the desired accuracy. And if a lower fidelity model is used, it is possible to incorporate into the analysis of the collected data an understanding of how the results would be expected to vary from a higher fidelity case.

Additional Information

© 2017 Author(s). Published by AIP Publishing. (Received 12 September 2016; accepted 3 February 2017; published online 28 February 2017) This work was supported by funding to A.E.C. from a NSF Graduate Research Fellowship and a Stanford Graduate Fellowship, by funding to J.O.D. from ONR N000141211047 and the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation through Grant No. GBMF2645, and by funding from the Bob and Norma Street Environmental Fluid Mechanics Laboratory at Stanford University. See supplementary material for further details on the experimental method, including data collection and processing, measurement uncertainties, and determination of the flow region are included in the supplemental materials. Contour plots of the mean Reynolds stress fields are also included here interested readers.

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Supplemental Material - .listing

Supplemental Material - IsolatedElementsWriteupSupplement.pdf

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