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Energy Procedia 110 (2017) 304 309

1st International Conference on Energy and Power, ICEP2016, 14-16 December 2016, RMIT
University, Melbourne, Australia

Investigate the feasibility of high aspect ratio vertical axis wind

turbine
Bavin Loganathana, Pritesh Gokhaleb, Teera Kritpranama, Panarat Jitthanongsaka, Abhijit
Datea,*, Firoz Alama
a
School of Engineering, RMIT University, Melbourne 3000, Australia
b
Faculty of Mechanical Engineering, Technische Universitt Chemnitz, Germany

Abstract

The paper aims to investigate the performance of the high aspect ratio vertical axis wind turbine with numerical method and to
present some experimental results. Aerodynamics with numerical method is a major prospect of the investigation. Computational
fluid dynamic software, ANSYS CFX, is employed to analyze drag force generated from the influence of blade shape. Two types
of turbine blades have been investigated with aerodynamics prospects, namely shape-design model and mechanism model. Power
coefficient of each models are calculated and compared. Turning force to reverse force ratio has been used to compare different
shapes of the turbine blade. It has been found that the mechanism model, with power coefficient of 16.2 per cent, offers better
capability of harnessing wind energy than shape-design model.
2017 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license
2017 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd.
(http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).
Peer-review under responsibility of the organizing committee of the 1st International Conference on Energy and Power.
Peer-review under responsibility of the organizing committee of the 1st International Conference on Energy and Power.
Keywords: vertical axis wind turbine; blade design; numerical method; ANSYS CFX; high aspect ratio; power coefficient; harnessing wind
energy; blade mechanism; flapping blade

1. Introduction

Modern wind turbines are categorized into two configurations by their rotor operating principles; horizontal axis
wind turbines (HAWTs) and vertical axis wind turbines (VAWTs). HAWTs are currently the most prevailing

* Corresponding author. Tel.: +61399250612

E-mail address: abhijit.date@rmit.edu.au

1876-6102 2017 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license
(http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).
Peer-review under responsibility of the organizing committee of the 1st International Conference on Energy and Power.
doi:10.1016/j.egypro.2017.03.144
 Bavin Loganathan et al. / Energy Procedia 110 (2017) 304 309 305

configuration around the world. They utilize the created lifts to spin the shaft and generate electricity. Their rotor
orientations nowadays are upwind and downwind configurations. Mechanical and electronic system have been
attached to the HAWTs to improve the efficiency by autonomously yawing their swept area to align with the wind
and pitching their rotors to the optimum angles[1, 2]. VAWTs on the other hand are capable of using either or both
lift and drag to generate electricity. Lift-driven type primarily takes advantages of generating lift force to rotate the
shaft. Knowledge of aerodynamic airfoil has been applied in blades design and construction[3]. Drag-driven type
uses drag force as an essential source to generate electricity. In practical operation, torque is generated by the
difference between drag forces in each side of the rotor. The resultant force then rotates the turbine in proper
direction to harness energy from the wind. Combination of lift and drag driven type is also exist. Figure A1 and A2
in the appendix show different types of HAWTs and VAWTs in present time.
Both HAWTs and VAWTs distinctly have their own advantages and limitations. The major advantage of HAWTs
are the high efficiency in converting wind energy into mechanical energy[4]. Self-starting at low wind speed is
achievable due to its high aspect ratio blades. As they have widely fabricated around the world, their production cost
is lower than those VAWTs. The horizontal model however has many limitations including noise generations,
complex mechanisms, shorter service time, large area for operation and high maintenance costs[5]. The vertical axis
wind turbines on the other hand offer omnidirectional operation. Installation, operation and maintenance costs are
low as the generator and controller always locates at the turbine base. Disturbance from generating noise is also
minimal. In addition, more number of VAWTs can be installed in a certain area than those of HAWTs. Nevertheless,
the VAWTs need initial startup from generator until they reach sufficient speed for power production. Furthermore,
manufacturing cost is high as they are relatively not widely used globally. Low efficiency in generating power is also
a limitation of this type of wind turbine[5].
Drag type VAWTs have been chosen to investigate in this project due to their versatilities in practical operations
over HAWTs and lift type VAWTs. The major consideration is drag type VAWTs does not involve the variation in
pitch angle of the blade for optimum performances[1, 6]. Although high aspect ratio has been expressed to improve
performances of HAWTs[7], none of research papers have not investigated its effect on VAWTs. Furthermore, High
aspect ratio blade also has potential for VAWTs to overcome self-starting limitation by producing torque from high
moment. This research will fulfill the gap in these areas by investigating on the best of selected shapes with high
aspect ratio of the turbine blades and its performances whilst maintaining its structural strengths in operating
conditions.

2. High aspect ratio VAWTs blade investigation

The purposes of this section are to identify important parameters for blade design with consideration on
aerodynamic prospect. The blade will be designed by considering on creating high turning force while minimizing
the reverse force. The turbine hence will rotate about desired direction. Different blade shapes have been justified
their performance by turning force to reversed force ratio. Figure 1 (a) illustrates a diagram of drag type wind turbine
in practical operation.

 (1)

Fig. 1 (a) Turning and reverse force; (b) Flapping blade wind turbines
306 Bavin Loganathan et al. / Energy Procedia 110 (2017) 304 309

Stagnation point has been determined for blade design process. Stagnation point is a point in the fluid flow where
the local velocity is reduced to zero[8]. According to the conservation of energy, energy of local velocity at the
stagnation point converts to pressure. As a result of increasing in pressure, force acting on stagnation point increases.
The blade design process hence mainly focus on creating front side of the blade to have the largest effect of
stagnation point while minimizing its effect on the rear side.

2.2 Investigation of mechanism to VAWTs blade: Flapping blade

The idea of flapping wind turbine is using of flapping window to neglect the negative torque. When the blade
moving and facing to unwanted direction of the wind, the flapping window will open and let the wind flow without
disturbing or creating any negative torque. Mechanism of hinge will help flapping window to circulate up by lift and
drag force created from the wind velocity. However, there is stills mechanism to prevent flapping window to not
come over 90 degree. Figure 1 (b) will demonstrate how flapping turbine work.

3. Numerical approach

ANSYS CFX software has been selected for investigation process in this project. By using Design Modeler in
CFX, a rectangular enclosure has been generated as a domain. Its size must be large enough to avoid disturbances
and effects of the walls to the generated flow. Models of high aspect ratio blade for finite element simulations have
been drawn in CATIA V5R19 and imported to ANSYS CFX. Since the investigations focus on the fluid flow over
the models, constructions of inflation and sizing have been employed in mesh generation section. The purpose of
sizing and inflation is to refine meshing quality in selected areas for more accurate results, which are on the cutting
surfaces. To validate the model experiment data by Munshi S.R. et al. has been used to compare with this model
simulation setting [9]. Drag force from simulation program has been obtained and drag coefficient has been
estimated, using Equation (12). Where  is drag force, is density of the air,  is cross section area faced to the free
steam, and  is wind speed. Result from simulation program and experiment is plotted and demonstrated on Figure
7.

Fig. 2 Validation of CFD model [9]

Individual shapes has its own drag coefficient [10]. Although drag coefficient of many basic shapes have been
collected from experimentation, their drag coefficient for rear side and variation in their geometries have not yet
published before. Basic shapes with tiny stagnation point is used in shape selection[11]. Three different basic shapes
corresponding to the shape selection criterion have been selected for the design processes; half elliptic, Isosceles
triangle and Right triangle. Blades span and their heights a have been constraint at 175 mm and 280 mm
respectively. For half elliptic blade shape, its major axis or chord b has been altered between 70 mm and 490 mm.
Equal base angles () were modified in isosceles triangle from 10 degree to 80 degree with an interval of 10 degree.
For right triangle, an angle at its base () was adjusted for the same trend as a design of isosceles triangle. Figure 3
(a) shows the alterations of each shapes in this investigation. After modified symmetrical airfoils and basic shapes
 Bavin Loganathan et al. / Energy Procedia 110 (2017) 304 309 307

have been investigated, a cross sectional shape that offers the best TF/RF ratio will be proceeded to determine the
effect from cut out its frontal area[12]. The cut out experiment is designed to modify the verified shape by removing
area at the front side as shown in Figure 3(b). The cross sections hence will have the thinnest thickness of their
shapes which is at 1mm for this investigation. The effect of thickness will also be investigated by altering the
thickness of the shape from 1mm to 3mm while keeping other dimension constant.

Circular /
Circular / Triangle elliptical
Triangle elliptical

Fig. 3 (a) example of solid blade shapes; (b) example of cut-out blade shapes

For three-dimension objects, drag force are generated from both cross sectional shape of the object and its span.
Aspect ratio of the blade is defined as blade span over blade height whereas frontal area that captures drag force
from the wind can be calculated from blade span multiply by blade height. Alterations in blade span, with constraint
cross sectional shapes and its dimensions, affect TF/RF ratio as it varies frontal area of the blade. This area is hence
needed to be constraint at certain value. While keeping blade width and frontal area constant, varying blade height
and blade length will reveal the relationship between TF/RF ratio and aspect ratio of the blade. The aspect ratio that
offers highest TF/RF ratio will be selected, together with blade height to blade width ratio from cross sectional shape
investigation, will be used to generate three-dimension blade and calculate TF/RF ratio for power coefficient
investigation as mentioned in theoretical analysis.

4. Results

For the purpose of presentation, results from triangle shapes have been converted from degree at their base angle
to blade width which is shown in figure 4 (a). At base angles of 80 degree, both blade widths of isosceles and right
triangles are at 793.98mm and 1587.96 mm respectively. In this case, blade width is proportional to TF/RF ratio
when blade height is constraint. At blade width, TF/RF of elliptic, isosceles triangle and right triangle shapes are
approximately 3.0113, 1.8732 and 1.0812 respectively. Although blade width of triangle shapes keep rising as their
base angles increase, their TF/RF ratio do not exceed the value of semi elliptic shape with 250mm blade width. The
maximum TF/RF ratio for isosceles triangle and right triangle, which relatively low when compare to the highest
TF/RF ratio of semi elliptic shape, are at 2.4733 and 2.0779 respectively. In addition, the maximum TF/RF ratio for
airfoil cross section is 2.3192. The elliptic shape hence offers the highest TF/RF ratio at 3.0113 and has been
selected to investigate the effect of cut out and thickness alteration. The investigation on cut out effect on the semi
elliptic shape shows that the cut out improves maximum TF/RF ratio of the cross sectional shape around 10 per cent.
The maximum TF/RF ratio of the cut out model is 3.779 while it is at 3.0113 for the blunt model. The cut out
however does not enhance the TF/RF ratio at every blade width. After it reaches the maximum point, the ratio
continually drop as the blade width increases as shown in figure 4 (b). The thickness of the cut out shape also
reduces the TF/RF ratio as it becomes thicker. Figure 5 (a) shows that the TF/RF ratio steady decreases as the
thickness of the cut out shape increases.
The best configuration of cross sectional shape is the cut out semi elliptic shape with 1mm thickness. The ratio of
blade height to blade width that generates the best a/c ratio is 1.2174 with TF/RF ratio of 3.3779. The a/c ratio and
1mm thickness have been used to create a cross section for aspect ratio investigation. Dimension of the blade are
100mm in height and 82.14mm in width. Length of blade varies consistently to aspect ratio. The aspect ratio in this
308 Bavin Loganathan et al. / Energy Procedia 110 (2017) 304 309

investigation changes from 1 to 10. Result in figure 5 (b) shows that aspect ratio of 3 gives the best TF/RF ratio for
semi elliptic blade shape with a/c ratio of 1.2174. The TF/RF ratio is 3.0475.

4
3.5
3.0113 3.3779
3.5
3

2.4733 3
2.5
2.0779 2.5 3.0113

TF/RF ratio
TF/RF ratio

2
2
1.5 Semi elliptic shape
1.5 Cut out semi elliptic shape

1 Isosceles triangle
1
Right triangle Blunt semi elliptic shape
0.5 0.5

0 0
0 500 1000 1500 2000 0 100 200 300 400 500 600
Blade width (mm) blade width (mm)

Fig. 4 (a) TF/RF ratio for solid shapes; (b) TF/RF ratio for cut out shapes

3.1
3.2
3.0475
3.05
3.15
3
3.1 Cutout elliptic shape Semi elliptic shape with
2.95 thickness of 1mm
3.05 TF/RF ratio
TF/RF ratio

2.9
3
2.85
2.95
2.8
2.9 2.75
2.85 2.7
2.8 2.65
2.75 2.6
0 2 4 6 0 2 4 6 8 10 12
Thickness (mm) Aspect ratio

Fig. 5 (a) TF/RF ratio versus thickness; (b) TF/RF ratio versus aspect ratio

After determining the best blade height to blade width ratio and aspect ratio a new design of the cut-out semi-
elliptical blade is created as shown in Figure 6. Keeping the frontal area constant at 100,000 mm, the final blade
design has 183mm height a, cord width b of 150mm and length of 547mm. The simulation result of this final
design shows that TF of the final blade is 2.644 N while RF is 0.5715 N. The TF/RF ratio hence is 4.6264. Power
coefficient for the new design of the cut out semi-elliptical blade has been estimated from the numerical analysis as
shown in Figure 6( b). The maximum coefficient is 12% at tip seed ratio around 0.3.
0.14

0.12
Power coefficient

0.1

0.08

0.06

0.04

0.02
183mm 0
0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1
Tip speed ratio

Fig. 6 (a) New design of the cut out semi-elliptical blade; (b) Power coefficient for the new design
 Bavin Loganathan et al. / Energy Procedia 110 (2017) 304 309 309

Fig. 7 (a) shows the total force (TF RF) produced by a flapping blade with dimensions of 0.5 m length, 0.2 m
height and 0.001 m thick for different solidity. The flapping window is assumed to be completely open when in
reverse direction. The minimum solidity is assumed to be 0.5 for structural stability of the blade. The maximum total
force was observed at a solidity value of 0.568. Figure 7(b) shows the power coefficient for a solidity of 0.568, the
maximum power coefficient is seen as 16.2% at a tip speed ratio of 0.3.
0.18
3
0.568 0.16
Total force produce (N)

2.5 0.632
0.14

Power coefficient
0.692 0.12
2
0.748 0.1
1.5 0.8 0.08
1 0.06
0.04
0.5
0.02
0 1 0
0.5 0.6 0.7 0.8 0.9 1 0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1
Solidity Tip speed ratio

Fig. 7 (a) Total force of flapping blade; (b) Power coefficient for solidity of 0.568

5. Conclusion

The cut out semi elliptic shape offers a promising TF/RF ratio as the drag force generated from the curve at rear
side of the semi elliptic is much lower than those of sharp edge from triangle cross section. The best aspect ratio is 2
which offers TF/RF ratio of 4.34 for cut out semi elliptic shape. The flapping type blade with solidity of 0.568
produces maximum total turning force and a power coefficient of 16.2% for a tip speed ratio of 0.3. The flapping
blade model has been built at aspect ratio of 2.5. The reason behind high aspect ratio in flapping window is to reduce
turning speed.

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