A Report on Design, Numerical Modelling and Performance Analysis of Vertical Axis Helical Wind Turbine: A Case Study at Sallaghari

Abstract

Wind energy is extremely vital in the development of sustainable energy with the growing focus on renewable energy. Interests in design of wind turbines has also been expanding. This research work is all about the design and numerical modelling of the vertical axis helical wind turbine for high power generation at Sallaghari. The rotor blades of varying aspect ratio were designed in CATIA V5R20 and simulation was carried out in ANSYS Workbench 18.1 and necessary data were obtained via computational fluid dynamic approach. Furthermore, the design was imported to rapid prototyping machine for fabrication of the rotor blade which later was assembled to proper frame arrangement and finally testing was carried out. The CFD approach was used for evaluation of highly efficient rotor with varying the aspect ratio and it has shown the turbine with aspect ratio of 1 to be the most efficient with performance coefficient of 0.3927. Under performance analysis section, both experimental and CFD data were used for numerical modelling validation. From the data obtained experimentally, the fabricated VAHWT has been found to operate at the low cut-in speed of 3.59 m/s and maximum power output has been found to be 7.76 watts at the wind speed of 11 m/s. The maximum rpm of the rotor blade was recorded to be 708.2 rpm at the velocity of 11.51 m/s signifying its potentiality of wind power production. At the end, the data obtained from both the process when analyzed through graph plots, had shown the similar nature slope wise. This simply signified the generation of satisfactory data via experiment. Moreover, the mechanical losses had shown difference between the experimental and data obtained via CFD approach. The 2-wheeled vehicles had the highest average speed than other mode of vehicles and the average speed of the vehicles among all modes was 57 Km/hr available at Sallaghari highway. The experimental data carried out at Sallaghari highway demonstrates that the maximum impact wind velocity of 7.86 m/s with 3.46 watts power generation, was available at 4 pm due to heavy duty vehicle and more traffic in highways. The average impact wind energy available at Sallaghari highway was 1.53 watts at the wind speed of 5.83 m/s. It can also be economical method of power extraction from wind in the country like Nepal with growing urbanisation.