| publication name | Experimental and numerical study of the wind tunnel blockage effects on the behaviour of a horizontal axis wind turbine |
|---|---|
| Authors | Abdelgalil Eltayesh, Massimiliano Burlanod, Francesco Castellani and Matteo Becchetti |
| year | 2018 |
| keywords | small-size wind turbines; wind tunnel tests; CFD simulations; wind tunnel blockage |
| journal | Proceedings of the XV Conference of the Italian Association for Wind Engineering, pp.272-285 |
| volume | Not Available |
| issue | Not Available |
| pages | 272-285 |
| publisher | Not Available |
| Local/International | International |
| Paper Link | Not Available |
| Full paper | download |
| Supplementary materials | Not Available |
Abstract
This study presents an experimental and numerical investigation of the effects of tunnel blockage, defined as the ratio of the free portion of a wind tunnel cross-section with and without the rotor of a small-size (diameter 2 m) horizontal-axis turbine (HAWT). Experimental measurements were performed on three rotors with different number of blades, namely three, five and six, and different tip speed ratios, in the closed-loop open-test section wind tunnel of the University of Perugia. Numerical wind tunnel simulations were performed at the University of Genoa through a steady-RANS method with SST k-w turbulence model by means of the CFD solver OpenFOAM. The wind turbine was represented numerically by the actuator disc method. Simulations have been compared to experimental results for validation.