Evaluation of the unsteady aerodynamic forces acting on a vertical-axis turbine by means of numerical simulations and open site experiments

An increasing number of vertical-axis wind turbine prototypes have reached the step in which the theoretically predicted performance needs to be validated in order to move to the next steps of a real commercial project. This step often faces the significant challenges posed by their airfoil aerodynamics that are more complex than those of conventional horizontal-axis wind turbines, and it has also to deal with the lack of fundamental experimental data for robust validation. In this context, an accurate prediction of the real turbine operation is important and the use of computational fluid dynamics (CFD) is imposing itself as the most suitable tool to characterize the unsteady phenomena that are difficult to detect by means of experimental measurements. In the current work, two-dimensional numerical simulations of an H-type three-blade Darrieus turbine have been performed in a wide range of tip-speed ratios (TSRs) from TSR = 1.8 to TSR = 5.0. Unsteady CFD simulations were compared with unique experimental data collected in the field in terms of normal aerodynamic forces acing on the blades during the revolution. Generally, nice agreement was found between simulations and experiments, especially at medium-high tip-speed ratios. The influence of operating conditions on the performance prediction capability of the numerical model was also discussed. This is one of the key points of study since the lack of detailed experimental data often makes numerical analyses doubtful or scarcely effective. Finally, the simulation results were exploited in order to analyze the phenomena occurring during the revolution and to correlate them with the experimental findings.