Basic Version Design Characteristics

Design features:

Self Starting: This turbine version has a high lift low Reynolds number airfoil to allow starting at low wind speed. Selig 1210 Airfoil.

Compact Size: turbine dimensions are as follows.

Rotor Diameter(m)

0.5

Rotor Tall (m)

1.0

Swept Area (m2)

0.5

Overall Height (m)

1.565

Low Weight: The turbine blades will be made out of extruded Aluminum has a low weight.

The Coefficient of performance Cp curve at a range of tip speed ratios is plotted from the CFD study as follows:

 

Power Curve at different TSR
CFD Process Steps:

The Turbine design is analyzed by CFD study in Ansys workbench to calculate the performance curve of the turbine:

To accomplish this goal we follow these steps:

1. A simplified geometry was created to reduce the calculation time of the CFD solver. Geometry was created in Autodesk Fusion 360 and then exported to IGES format.

2. Start an Ansys workbench project and select the fluid flow module of Fluent.
3. Open the Design modeler by double-clicking the geometry tab.

4. Import the 2D geometry that was created in IGES format earlier.

5. Do some minor editing of the geometry in the Ansys design modeler to simplify the geometry for the meshing process.

6. Open Ansys Meshing from the Mesh tab and start to apply meshing methods to the fluid domains with appropriate sizing.

7. Check the generated mesh metrics like mesh quality, aspect ratio, and Skewness. To ensure the smooth running of Ansys fluent solver.

8. Open Fluent solver and apply the solver settings as follows:

9. Open the CFD-post by double-clicking the results Tab, then start to present the results and calculate quantitative values such as torque values to calculate the power of the turbine.

 
Turbine predicted Performance