Power efficiency of 5-blade drag-type Vertical Axis Wind Turbine

The computational fluid dynamics (CFD) and computational fluid software FLUENT are employed to simulate the dynamic characteristics of the 5-blade drag-type Vertical Axis Wind Turbine (VAWT), and the power efficiency of drag-type VAWT. In the simulation, the sliding grid and PISO algorithm are used. Different inlet velocity, 6.0, 7.0, 8.0, 9.0, and 10.0 m/s, are employed to investigate the length effect of the simulated region on calculation results of the drag-type VAWT by varying the length of simulation region. It obtained that the critical length of the simulation region and the optimized rotor’s rotation rate increase with the inlet wind speed linearly within the scope of this simulation; the relative standard error deceases with the length of simulated range in power function form; the power efficiency of the 5-blade dragtype VAWT increases with inlet wind speed exponentially.