Study on the Influence of Protuberance Amplitude on the Performance of Vertical Axis Wind Turbines

Abstract

Abstract The performance of vertical axis wind turbine (VAWT) is mainly affected by the dynamic stall process of the blade. Inspired by the anti-stall performance of the humpback whale flipper, leading edge protuberances (LEPs) are applied to 2-blade VAWT. Based on computational fluid dynamics simulation method, the effects of LEPs amplitude on VAWT performance are investigated when blade tip speed ratio is 2.19. The results show that the larger the amplitude of the LEP, the lower the average power coefficient. When the number of protuberances is 3, the average power coefficient of the VAWT with a protuberance amplitude of 6.625mm is 1.8% higher than prototype blade. Considering the impact of increasing the chord length of biomimetic blades, the average tangential force coefficient of all biomimetic VAWTs decreases. The peak section performance of the bionic blade decreases significantly while the trough section performance increases significantly. The difference between the peak section and trough section of the LEPS plays an important role in improving the performance. This study provides a reference for the application of bionic protuberances in VAWTs.