Document Type

Article

Publication Date

Winter 1-15-2026

Abstract

The current work aims at improving the power conversion efficiency of a widely used type of wind turbine, the vertical-axis wind turbine (VAWT). This is achieved by actively controlling the boundary layer characteristics on turbine blades through wall suction. The effect of this active control technique on the performance of a NACA0018 Darrieus vertical-axis wind turbine is investigated by means of three-dimensional numerical simulations using ANSYS-FLUENT software. Pressure-based incompressible Unsteady Reynolds-Averaged NavierStokes (URANS) equations, complemented with the Shear Stress Transport (SST) k-ω model for turbulence closure, were solved. A detailed computational methodology is adopted, including domain extent, mesh refinement, and timestep sensitivity investigations to ensure numerical accuracy and solution reliability. The obtained numerical results are subsequently analyzed in order to evaluate the impact of the proposed approach on turbine performance over a range of suction momentum ratios. The results show that active boundary layer suction has a positive impact on Darrieus VAWT performance, with a more pronounced effect at higher suction momentum ratios. An increase in the net coefficient of power of up to 33% is achieved at the optimal suction momentum ratio, indicating the effectiveness of the proposed performance augmentation technique.

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