2D CFD Model of Blunt NACA 0018 at High Reynolds Number for Improving Vertical Axis Turbine Performance

A 2D CFD modelof a modified turbine blade was investigated numerically in this work. The turbine utilized NACA 0018 which had airfoil chord length of 0.75 m and operated at Reynolds number (Re) of 1.07 x 10(6). The model was simulated using OpenFoam with steady solver named simpleFoam. The aim of airfoil modification was to gain more power by increasing turbine lift force. The increase of lift force was obtained by truncating the trailing edge at 15 % chord length. The investigation of single normal and blunt were conducted prior to evaluation of turbine power. Some CFD simulation parameters were evaluated in the normal single NACA 0018 model and the best parameter combination were decided to resolve the physical turbulence phenomena and the fluid airfoil interaction. The best parameters was chosen by validating the simulation result to some reference data and then assigned to a CFD model of blunt NACA 0018. From the simulation result, it was found that the blunt NACA 0018 had 15.83 % higher lift coefficient than the normal and the turbine power was increase significantly when use blunt airfoil.