The study of turbulence models effects in simulaton of power performance of horizontal axis wind turbine

Abstract— This paper numerically investigates two important parameters including Turbulence Models and Turbulence Intensity (TI) which highly affect the power coefficient of Horizontal Axis Wind Turbines (HAWT). Firstly, a Horizontal Axis Wind Turbine was modelled in CATIA. Secondly, the geometry was transferred to GAMBIT for meshing. Finally, the meshed geometry was transferred to CFX for simulation. The results were obtained from three different Tip Speed Ratios (TSR) and two diversified Turbulence Intensities (TI). Three different mesh resolutions including Fine, medium and coarse were used for the simulations. The Shear Stress Transport (SST) and k- were employed as the turbulence models. The results obtained from CFX were compared with experimental data. The differences between experimental data and simulated data can be observed according to the article graphs. Moreover, a grid study was performed in order to understand the optimum number of nodes.