NUMERICAL SIMULATION AND VISUALIZATION OF THE FLOW AROUND THE DARIUS WIND TURBINE

A fundamental understanding of the flow around the wind turbine is important to investigate the performance of new type of wind turbine. This study presents the simulation of three dimensional flow fields around the Darius wind turbine as an example. Incompressible Navier-Stokes equations are used for this simulation. The rotating coordinate system that rotates in the same speed of the turbine is used in order to simplify the boundary condition on the blades. Additionally, the boundary fitted coordinate system is employed in order to express the shape of the blades precisely. Fractional step method is used to solve the basic equations. Third order upwind scheme is chosen for the approximation of the non-linear terms since it can compute the flow field stably even at high Reynolds number without any turbulence models. The flow fields obtained in this study are highly complex due to the three dimensionality and are visualized effectively by using the technique of the computer graphics.