INVESTIGATING THE PERFORMANCE OF MULTI ELEMENT WIND LENS

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

Summer 6-24-2024

Abstract

A major limitation for the full utilization of wind turbines as the main power source is the large variation of wind availability from one area to another due to the variation in wind velocities and most of the areas possesses low average wind speeds. Harnessing energy from the wind using diffuser augmented wind turbines or wind concentrators (commonly called wind lens) is one of the most trending topics recently in the field of wind energy where low wind speed is encountered. Therefore, a lot of research studies focus on finding optimized design of wind turbine diffusers. The main objective of the present work is to investigate the performance of a new type of wind concentrator composed of multi element airfoil sections. Comparison of the new design is made with common design of wind lens and find the optimum configuration that outperform a conventional curved and brimmed wind lens. Another aim of the new design is to admit extra air mass flow rate to the exit section to enable installation of a secondary wind turbine in addition to the primary wind turbine placed at the throat section of the wind lens. The multi element wind lens is composed of two airfoil shaped elements, the first section acts as a nozzle while the second section acts as a diffuser. A small vertical gap between the two sections to allow the extra air mass flow rate inside the wind lens. The extra mass flow rate of air through the exit section allows the application of dual rotor wind turbine with the wind lens where a second rotor is placed at the exit section of the wind lens. The performance of the new design was performed using CFD technique via the commercial software ANSYS FLUENT. The study investigated the tilt angle of the front piece, the tilt angle of the back piece as well as the gap between the two sections on the mass flow rate through the throat and the exit sections. The results of the mass flow rat and wind velocities as well as the drag coefficient are compared with conventional wind lens results. The results showed that it is possible to increase the mass flow rate through the exit section by 30%, compared with that at the throat section. The drag coefficient is much lower than that of brimmed wind lens.

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