Abstract: Wind energy provides an attractive power source as an alternative to fossil fuels because it is abundant, clean, and produces no harmful emissions. To extract more energy from the wind we need to increase the wind turbine size. However, the increase in size has begun to reach a limit in terms of material composition and structural stability. To quell the trend of increasing size in wind power systems alternative wind turbine blade designs are investigated and evaluated to increase power production and efficiency of present size machines. Wind concentrators have been proposed for the turbulence flow and low velocity region because they provide structural and aerodynamic advantages.
In this study, several selected concentrator designs were analyzed. A computational fluid dynamics (CFD) program was used to model air flow patterns through a prototype wind concentrator and optimize its performance. Through this method, it was determined that a concentrator with a disk shaped entrance and exit is effective at concentrating wind energy.
Maximum velocities were obtained with the addition of pressure-relief slits in the inlet v portion. With an ambient inlet air stream of 8 m/s, CFD results predicted the concentrator would accelerate the air velocity to 18.56 m/s. The concentrator also predicted similar accelerations at higher inlet velocity. Our numerical simulations show that the circular disk shaped wind concentrator can increase velocity approx twice the inlet.
Title: CFD Analysis of Wind Concentrator
Author: Md Ahsan, Ramniwas Bishnoi, Sanjeev Kr. Singh
International Journal of Mechanical and Industrial Technology
ISSN 2348-7593 (Online)
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