Mechanical Engineering ETDs

Publication Date

8-27-2012

Abstract

With increasing demand for renewable energy, there is a need for accurate and reliable simulations of a flow around a wind turbine. To be of use as an engineering design and planning tool, such simulations should be conducted in a timely manner. This can be achieved if a flow is modeled with Reynolds-Averaged Navier-Stokes turbulence models. To reduce uncertainties associated with numerical simulations from the simulation results, one has to ensure the convergence of results with respect to various simulation parameters. In this paper, the effect of the size of computational domain, boundary proximity, grid stretching, and initial grid wall spacing is analyzed. Simulations are conducted with several turbulence models using structured meshes. Due to the complex geometry of wind turbines, a flow over an infinite rotating disk is considered in the current paper as a first step. Such flow represents a rotating wind turbine with an infinite number of blades.

Keywords

Wind turbines--Aerodynamics--Computer simulation, Turbulence--Computer simulation.

Degree Name

Mechanical Engineering

Level of Degree

Masters

Department Name

Mechanical Engineering

First Committee Member (Chair)

Truman, C. Randall

Second Committee Member

Vorobieff, Peter

Document Type

Thesis

Language

English

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