Wind & Renewable Energy

Biography

Biography: Michał Tomaszewski

Abstract

Recent years were marked by increasing interest in harnessing renewable energy sources. Programs are made to popularize natural energy sources such as: solar energy, ocean waves, river water flow or wind. Great financial investments are made for wind power plants. Wind turbines as energy source were used for centuries, with the difference of converting the wind energy into mechanical energy. With years their construction and use changed, but the basic principle remained the same. Swift progress of numerical methods allowed constructors to determine how the construction will work even before prototyping. Issues with analyzing wind turbines are far from simple. Wind is a product of pressure differences. The turbine’s rotor is subjected to pressure causing strain in the construction. To simulate this, CFD software is required to create wind flow analysis. Such analysis provides us with knowledge about pressure distribution affecting the rotor’s blades and visualizes the flow line. To find out how much the blade will bent however, a structural analysis is required. Presented in the paper are analyses made with two different methods of coupling – one-sided and double-sided. A small wind turbine fitted with diffuser to increase the wind speed in front of the rotor was used in both analyses. A process of building the flow domain to most accurately reproduce the actual flow will be presented. The study was supported by the National Centre for Research and Development within project “STOW” - Small Wind Turbine Optimized for Wind Low Speed Conditions. This support is gratefully acknowledged.