Performance Investigation and Optimization of a Vertical Axis Wind Turbine with the Omni-Direction-Guide-Vane

This paper aims to present an approach on optimizing the design of the omni-direction-guide-vane (ODGV) in order to maximise the performance of the vertical axis wind turbine (VAWT). An analytical model had been developed based on the continuity equation for assessing the impact of each design parameter of the ODGV to the VAWT performance. A 2-level full factorial design was further utilized for the verification of analytical findings with the aid of computational fluids dynamics (CFD) simulation. Three parameters, i.e. two guide vanes angles (theta and beta) and ratio of VAWT diameter to distance between two guide vanes (b) were selected for the initial design of experiment (DOE) screening process. A total of 9 cases which include one centre point per block had been setup in CFD simulation. The DOE results suggested that the optimum point exists at the corner point (not at center point). Meanwhile, it was also pointed that strong interaction effect can be seen in theta with beta, theta with b and beta with b. It is worth to highlight that the analytical model overestimates the performance at larger theta since only one dimension steady flow is assumed. (C) 2013 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd.