Fundamental Understanding of The Physics of A Small-Scale Vertical Axis Wind Turbine With Dynamic Blade Pitching: An Experimental and Computational Approach

Fundamental Understanding of the Physics of a Small-Scale
Vertical Axis Wind Turbine with Dynamic Blade Pitching: An

Experimental and Computational Approach
Moble Benedict

Alfred Gessow Rotorcraft Center, University of Maryland, College Park, MD, 20742
Vinod Lakshminarayan

Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics, Stanford University, CA, 94035
Johnathan Pino

Inderjit Chopra

Alfred Gessow Rotorcraft Center, University of Maryland, College Park, MD, 20742
Abstract
This paper describes the systematic experimental and computational (CFD) studies performed to
investigate the performance of a small-scale vertical axis wind turbine (VAWT) utilizing dynamic blade
pitching. A VAWT prototype with a simplied blade pitch mechanism was designed, built and tested in
the wind tunnel to understand the role of pitch kinematics in turbine aerodynamic eciency. The ability
of the present pitch mechanism to change the blade pitch phasing instantaneously in order to adapt to
changes in wind direction is the key to maximizing power extraction in urban environments. A CFD
model was developed and the model predictions correlated extremely well with test data. The validated
CFD model was used to develop a fundamental understanding of the physics of power extraction of such
a turbine. Both experimental and CFD studies showed that the turbine eciency is a strong function
of blade pitching amplitude, with the highest eciency occurring around 20
to 25
amplitude. The
optimum tip speed ratio (TSR) depends on the blade pitch kinematics, and it decreased with increasing
pitch amplitude for the symmetric blade pitching case. CFD analysis showed that the blade extracts
all the power in the frontal half of the circular trajectory, however, it loses power into the ow in
the rear half. One key reason for this being the large virtual camber and incidence induced by the ow
curvature eects, which slightly enhances the power extraction in the frontal half, but increases the power
loss in the rear half. Fixed-pitch turbine investigated in the present study also showed lower eciency
compared to the variable pitch turbines owing to the massive blade stall in the rear half, caused by the
large angle of attack and high reverse camber. Maximum achievable CP of the turbine increases with
higher Reynolds numbers, however, the fundamental ow physics remains relatively same irrespective of
the operating Reynolds number. This study clearly indicates the potential for major improvements in
VAWT performance with novel blade kinematics, lower chord/radius ratio, and using cambered blades.
Nomenclature
A Turbine frontal area, b D
b Blade span
c Blade chord
C
P
Coecient of power
D Turbine diameter
R Turbine radius
TSR Tip speed ratio, R/U
inf
Assistant Research Scientist, moble@umd.edu
Postdoctoral Fellow, vinodkl@stanford.edu
Undergraduate Research Assistant, jpino@umd.edu
Alfred Gessow Professor and Director, chopra@umd.edu

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American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics
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54th AIAA/ASME/ASCE/AHS/ASC Structures, Structural Dynamics, and Materials Conference
April 8-11, 2013, Boston, Massachusetts
AIAA 2013-1553
Copyright 2013 by the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, Inc. All rights reserved.
U
inf
Wind speed
U Flow speed along X axis
V Flow speed along Y axis
X, Y Turbine coordinate system
Rotational speed of the turbine
Azimuthal location
Blade pitch phasing
Air density, 1.225 Kg/m
3
Blade pitch angle
max
Blade pitch amplitude
I. Introduction
With increasing energy costs, rapid depletion of fossil fuels and growing concerns about the environmental
eects of burning hydrocarbons, researchers have been looking at alternate, more environmentally benign
sources to create power. Wind power, a renewable and virtually inexhaustible power source, is a promis-
ing means of green energy production. However, at present, horizontal axis wind turbines are the most
established method of harvesting wind energy. Majority of the wind energy plants today, are in the form
of windmill farms having several mega-Watt capacity, comprising of large horizontal axis windmills (rated
at several 100 kWs) driving electric generators and feeding into power supply grids. A major deterrent to
the continued development of wind energy at remote sites is the limited capacity of the nations electricity
distribution grid. Therefore, there is a strong need to co-locate energy generation based on the demand in
order to reduce the load and losses in the grid system [1]. Because large cities are the biggest consumers
of electricity, it is necessary to design small scale (1-2 kW peak power), ecient, stand-alone wind turbines
(for instance, a roof-top wind turbine farm) to meet their growing energy demand. However, unlike the
large open windmill farms, extracting wind energy in an urban scenario is challenging because of the tight
space constraints and the fact that wind prole is highly turbulent with rapid uctuations, both in terms of
magnitude as well as direction.
Figure 1. Optimized xed-pitch VAWT farm developed by California Insitute of Technology [2].
In an urban scenario, where space is of the essence, an important criterion for choosing one wind turbine
concept over the other for a small windmill farm, would be the power extracted per unit ground area (also
known as power density). HAWTs are not very attractive for such a scenario because of their need to maintain
a signicant lateral (3 5 turbine diameters in cross-wind direction) and longitudinal (6 10 diameters in
downwind direction) separation between adjacent turbines and therefore would have a large footprint, or in
other words, very low power density (2 3 W/m
2
). However, previous studies have shown that vertical axis
wind turbines (VAWTs) could have very close wind turbine spacing, and if placed appropriately in a farm (as
shown in Fig. 1), it could greatly enhance the farm eciency ( 30 W/m
2
, which is almost ten times more
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power extracted per unit land area compared to HAWTs) because of the constructive interference between
the turbines [2].
Table 1. Comparison of VAWT and HAWT power densities for individual turbines.
Turbine type Rated power (MW) Turbine diameter (m) Power density (W/m
2
)
VAWT 0.0012 1.2 1061
HAWT 2.5 100 318
HAWT 3.0 112 314
The power density of a farm would eectively depend on the lateral and longitudinal spacing between
the turbines (or number of turbines per unit area) and the power density of the individual turbines itself.
Therefore, it is important to examine the power density for a single turbine, which is in fact the power
extracted per unit projected area. Note that, the area used for power density calculation in the case of a
HAWT, is the projected circular swept area when the turbine is yawed 360
(A = R
2
). Table 1 compares
the power densities of two commercially available HAWTs and one VAWT and it can be seen that the
power density of VAWT is almost three times of the HAWTs [2]. This is partly because the swept area of a
VAWT (i.e., the cross-sectional area that interacts with the wind) need not be equally apportioned between
its breadth, which determines the size of its footprint, and its height. By contrast, the circular sweep of
HAWT blades dictates that the breadth and height of the rotor swept area are identical. Therefore, whereas
increasing HAWT rotor swept area necessarily increases the turbine footprint, it is possible to increase
the swept area of a VAWT independent of its footprint, by increasing the rotor blade height. Therefore,
theoretically, for a VAWT, the power density could be increased indenitely by increasing the turbine height
until it encounters other constraints which would limit its maximum height.
Even though VAWTs have very high power densities compared to HAWTs, the reason why VAWTs
never gained popularity was because most of the VAWTs built so far used xed blade pitch angle (Fig. 1),
and this conguration suers from very low eciency especially at low tip speed ratios (TSR) (TSR=blade
speed/wind speed, R/U
inf
) and are only self-starting for certain wind directions. Note that, until recently,
the eciency was the biggest concern for wind turbines and the farm power density was less of a factor,
because turbines were mostly installed at remote locations where there are no space constraints. However,
today, for a small-scale wind turbine to be used in an urban environment, power density is as important
as the turbine eciency. Therefore, the next generation small-scale turbines need to have not just high
eciencies, but also high power densities. Hence, a VAWT design may be a better starting point than
HAWTs for the design of wind farms with high power density. However, it is important to realize that the
eciency of xed-pitch VAWTs needs to be improved signicantly.
Previous studies have shown that the eciency of a VAWT could be improved by appropriately mod-
ulating the pitch angle of the blade (dynamic pitching) as it moves around the azimuth as shown in
Fig. 2(a) [1, 36]. However, these studies were not comprehensive enough to fully understand the physics
or optimize the performance of such a concept. Another key barrier in practically implementing such a
turbine was developing a simplied blade pitch mechanism. Most of the previous studies proposed mecha-
nisms, which were complicated (such as active blade pitching using individual blade actuators) and required
signicant amount of power to dynamically vary blade pitch. Other pitching mechanisms that have been
developed were passive in nature, and therefore, utilized the inertial and aerodynamic forces acting on the
blade to dynamically pitch the blade. Hence, the blade pitch schedule was a function of the operating con-
ditions, leading to very low eciencies. These are some of the reasons why such a turbine remained elusive,
even though, it has the potential to acheive high eciency (comparable to HAWTs) along with high power
density. Therefore, one of the key focuses of the present research was to develop a simplied, practically
feasible blade pitching mechanism so that such a turbine could become a reality.
The long-term goal of the present research is to develop a revolutionary, small-scale (diameter of 2
meters) variable pitch VAWT (1-2 kW range) with extremely high eciency and power density to be used
in urban environments such as roof-tops. The turbine should be able to be used individually or in a small
farm, in which case, the optimal locations of these turbines will have to be determined. The present study
is the rst step towards acheiving this goal and is focused on two key objectives, which are: (1) develop
a turbine prototype utilizing a simplied, low-power consumption blade pitch mechanism and demonstrate
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(a) Blade pitch kinematics and dention of coordinate
system on a variable-pitch VAWT.
(b) Experimental setup in the open-jet wind tunnel.
Figure 2. Variable-pitch VAWT.
the feasibility of this concept through wind tunnel testing, and (2) develop a 2-D CFD model, validate the
model with test data from the wind-tunnel studies, and then use the validated model to understand the
physics of power extraction of such a turbine. The insights gained from this study could be used to design
more ecient VAWTs in the future.
II. VAWT Prototype and Experimental Setup
An instrumented VAWT prototype has been designed and built as shown in Fig. 2(b). The pitch angle
of each of the blades is varied periodically as the blade moves around the azimuth using a four-bar based
passive pitching mechanism, the details of which are discussed in the next section. The cyclic blade pitching
kinematics is shown in Fig. 2(a). The present setup was designed such that the blade pitch amplitude (
max
)
and the pitch phasing () could be easily varied. The turbine has a diameter and blade span of 10 inches, and
a uniform blade chord of 2.5 inches with NACA 0015 airfoil section. It is important for the VAWT blades
to be lightweight and have a high stiness to weight ratio to minimize bending and torsional deformations
and also the structural loads at high rotational speeds. Therefore, the present blades utilized an innovative
structural design, where the blades were fabricated using a single layer of carbon prepreg wrapped around a
foam core and then baked inside a mold.
The entire setup was placed in front of an open-jet wind tunnel with a test-section of 22 inch by 22 inch as
shown in Fig. 2(b). The rotational speed of the turbine (and hence the torque) was varied for a constant wind
speed by adjusting the voltage supplied to the custom-built electromagnetic brake. The braking torque was
measured using a non-rotating reaction-based torque load cell (shown in Fig. 2(b)) and the turbine rotational
speed was measured using a laser tachometer. When the turbine attains a steady rotational speed, the power
generated by the turbine is calculated from the measured braking torque and rotational speed.
A. Pitch Mechanism Design
A simplied blade pitch changing mechanism is the key to the success of a variable pitch VAWT. The previous
more involved design of pitching mechanisms was the main reason why the variable pitch VAWTs became
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(a) Schematic showing the blade pitch mechanism.
(b) Actual blade pitch mechanism on the VAWT proto-
type.
Figure 3. Four-bar based blade pitch mechanism on the present variable-pitch VAWT prototype.
unpopular in the late 1970s, even though they were proven to be self-starting and much more ecient than
their xed pitch counterparts as well as even HAWTs. Therefore, a key focus of the present study was to
develop a simplied blade pitch mechanism.
As shown in Fig. 3(a), the present pitching mechanism is based on a four-bar linkage system, which
is designed in such a way that the blade pitches automatically in a cyclic fashion as the turbine rotates.
Therefore, the only power penalty incurred in its operation is the frictional losses associated with the moving
components. As shown in the schematic, L
1
, L
2
, L
3
and L
4
are the four linkage lengths. The key component
of the pitching mechanism is the oset link of length L
2
. The pitch links (of length L
3
) are connected to
the end of the oset link on one end and the other end is connected to point B, on the blade, which is at a
distance L
4
behind the pitching axis. The connections at both ends of the pitch link are through pin joints
to allow the rotational degree of freedom. The radius of the rotor forms the linkage length L
1
. With this
arrangement, as the rotor rotates, the blades automatically pitch, where the pitching amplitude depends
on the oset length, L
2
, when the other linkage lengths remain xed. The actual pitching mechanism
implemented on the VAWT prototype is shown in Fig. 3(b). The four-bar linkage system can be clearly seen
in the gure.
As explained before, the magnitude of the oset (L
2
) changes the blade pitching amplitude and the
direction in which the oset link is pointing would change the phasing of the cyclic blade pitching as shown
in Fig. 4(a). For the sake of simplicity, the present prototype is designed such that the oset length (L
2
)
could not be changed while the turbine is rotating (Fig. 3(b)), which means the blade pitch kinematics (pitch
amplitude,
max
) is xed. However, as shown in Fig. 4(a), in the present mechanism, the oset link could be
rotated to actively change the phasing of the cyclic pitch () depending on the direction of incoming wind
to maximize eciency. This method of altering the phasing of blade pitching is instantaneous and much
simpler than rotating the entire HAWT in the direction of the wind. This capability of the present VAWT
pitch mechanism, to immediately respond to a change in wind direction, is the key to maximizing the power
extraction in urban environments where wind direction changes rapidly.
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(a) Adjusting the pitch phasing by rotating the oset
link to adapt to the change in wind direction. (b) CFD grid system used for the 5 inch radius 4-bladed
cyclorotors with 2.5 inch blade chord.
Figure 4. Four-bar based blade pitch mechanism on the present variable-pitch VAWT prototype and the CFD
grid system.
III. 2D CFD Methodology
A 2-D CFD study was also conducted to understand the ow physics of a variable-pitch turbine. CFD
simulations were performed for the same turbine geometry used in the experimental study at dierent pitch
amplitudes, tip speed ratios and Reynolds numbers (Re). The details of the ow solver and grid system used
in the present study are given below.
A. Flow Solver
2-D simulations of the VAWT were undertaken using a compressible structured overset RANS solver, OVER-
TURNS [7]. This overset structured mesh solver uses the diagonal form of the implicit approximate fac-
torization method developed by Pulliam and Chaussee [8] with a preconditioned dual-time scheme to solve
the compressible RANS equations. Computations are performed in the inertial frame in a time-accurate
manner. A third-order MUSCL scheme [9] with Roe ux dierence splitting [10] and Korens limiter [11]
is used to compute the inviscid terms, and second-order central dierencing is used for the viscous terms.
Due to the relatively low Mach numbers in which the present turbine operate, the inclusion of a low Mach
preconditioner based on Turkels [12] method accelerates the convergence and ensures accuracy of the solu-
tion. Spalart-Allmaras [13] turbulence model is employed for RANS closure. This one-equation model has
the advantages of ease of implementation, computational eciency and numerical stability.
B. Grid System
An overset system of meshes, consisting of C-type airfoil mesh for each blade and a cylindrical background
mesh, is used for the computation. The airfoil meshes have 255 55 grid points in the wraparound and
normal directions, respectively. The background cylindrical mesh has 245 221 points in the azimuthal and
radial directions, respectively. Implicit hole-cutting method developed by Lee [14] and rened by Laksh-
minarayan [7] is used to nd the connectivity information between the overset meshes. Figure 4(b) shows
the mesh system used for the present turbine. In these gures, only the eld points (points where the ow
equations are solved) are shown. All the points that are blanked out either receive information from another
mesh or lies inside a solid body and therefore, does not have a valid solution.
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IV. Results
For a xed turbine geometry, the two key blade kinematic parameters that signicatly aect power extraction
on a variable-pitch VAWT are blade pitch amplitude (
max
) and the pitch phasing () (shown in Fig. 2(a)).
However, preliminary experimental and CFD studies have shown that aligning the oset link along the
direction of the wind or zero pitch phasing (=0, as shown in Fig. 3(a)) would maximize power extraction.
Therefore, all the results discussed in the present study are for zero pitch phasing, which means the blade
attains maximum pitch angle at the front ( = 90
) and rear ( = 270
) locations and close to zero pitch

angle at the top ( = 0
) and bottom ( = 180
) points in the circular blade trajectory. The only two

parameters varied in the present study are blade pitch amplitude (
max
) and tip speed ratio (ratio of blade
speed to wind speed, TSR = R/U
inf
). Pitch amplitude was varied from 20
to 35
in steps of 5
and
the pitching axis was at the quarter chord. Only symmetric pitch kinematics was investigated in the present
study, which means the blade has the same pitch angle variation in the frontal and rear halves. Tip speed
ratio was varied from around 0.2 (turbine rpm = 158) up to 1.1 (rpm = 870) for experimental studies and
up to 1.6 for CFD studies by changing the turbine rotational speed and keeping the wind speed xed at 10
m/s. The wind speed was kept xed so that the average chord-based Reynolds number would stay the same,
which was around 40,000.
A. Methodology
As explained in the previous section, the power extracted by the turbine was calculated from the measured
brake torque (with the electromagnetic brake) and its rotational speed. The inherent assumption here being,
once the turbine reaches steady state, the power extracted by the turbine is equal to the braking power.
However, the goal of the present experiment was not to measure the net aerodynamic power output of the
turbine, but, the complete power extracted by the blades, which does not include the power lost (or parasitic
power) in rotating the rest of the turbine structure such as the endplates, pitch links, etc. Assuming all the
power on a turbine is extracted by the blades, when the turbine reaches the equilibrium speed, the relation
below should be satised.
P
blades
= P
brake
+P
parasite
(1)
where P
blades
is the power extracted by the blades, P
brake
is the braking power, which is also the measured
power and P
parasite
is the parasitic power required to rotate the rest of the rotor structure (excluding blades),
which could also include the frictional loses. This relation (Eqn. 1) shows that the measured power (P
brake
) is
not equal to the power extracted by the blades, unless the parasitic power is negligible. Therefore, tare tests
were conducted in the wind tunnel by rotating rest of the turbine structure (excluding blades), using a motor
at the exact same operating conditions (wind speed = 10 m/s and equilibrium rotational speeds) where each
of the turbine power measurements were taken. The motor power is measured in these experiments from
the motor torque (obtained using a separate torque sensor) and its rotating speed. The measured motor
power is essentially the parasitic power (or tare power) required to rotate the turbine structure. Then, this
parasitic power (P
parasite
) was added to the previously measured brake power (P
brake
) to obtain the total
aerodynamic power extracted by just the blades (P
blades
) (Eqn. 1).
If the tare power was not added to the brake power, the measurements would still be useful, because it
would be an indicator of the complete system aerodynamic eciency. However, such measurements would
be very specic to this particular turbine because the rest of the turbine structure could change from one
experimental setup to another. Also, the results from these experiments need to be used for validating
lower-order aerodynamic models or CFD models, which in most cases would not be able to simulate the
rest of the rotor structure, pitch-links, etc. This would not be an issue while testing a conventional HAWT
because the parasitic power associated with turbine hub is negligible compared to the power extracted by
the blades.
It is important to note that the parasitic power measured during the tare tests were almost the same
order as the brake power and therefore cannot be neglected. This means that a signicant portion of the
power extracted by the blades is lost in rotating the rest of the turbine structure itself and is therefore
wasted. This emphasizes the need for designing more aerodynamically clean turbine structure if the system
eciency of such a turbine is to be increased.
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0 0.5 1 1.5 2
0
0.1
0.2
0.3
0.4
Tip speed ratio, TSR
C
o
e
f
f
i
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n
t

o
f

p
o
w
e
r
,

C
P

20
25
30
35

Figure 5. Experimental results showing the variation of coecient of power (C
P
) with tip speed ratio (TSR)
for 20
, 25
, 30
and 35
blade pitch amplitudes (Reynolds number = 40,000).

0 0.5 1 1.5 2
0
0.1
0.2
0.3
0.4
C
o
e
f
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t

o
f

p
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e
r
,

C
P

Test data (20
)
CFD prediction (20
)
(a) Variation of coecient of power (C
P
) with tip speed
ratio (TSR) for 20
blade pitch amplitude.

0 0.5 1 1.5 2
0
0.1
0.2
0.3
0.4
C
o
e
f
f
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,

C
P

Test data (25
)
CFD prediction (25
)
(b) Variation of coecient of power (C
P
) with tip speed
ratio (TSR) for 25

Figure 6. Validation of 2D CFD results with the experimental data obtained for 20
and 25
blade pitching
amplitudes (wind speed = 10 m/s).
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B. Experimental Results and CFD Validation
Experimental results showing the variation of coecient of power (C
P
) as a function of tip speed ratio (TSR)
for 20
, 25
, 30
and 35
blade pitch amplitudes is given in Fig. 5. C

P
is ratio of the actual power
extracted by the turbine to the total ideal aerodynamic power going into the turbine and is given by Eqn. 2.
C
P
=
P
blades
0.5AU
3
inf
(2)
where P
blades
is the total power extracted by the blades (Eqn. 1) and A (b D) is the frontal area of
the turbine. As shown in Fig. 5, turbines with 20
, 25
and 30
blade pitch amplitudes have very similar

performance with 25
producing slightly higher C

P
values especially at higher tip speed ratios. However,
the performance dropped signicantly as the pitch amplitude was increased to 35
. This could be due to

the blades stalling at higher pitch amplitudes. Also comparing 30
and 35
pitch amplitudes, the tip speed

ratio at which the maximum C
P
occurs is much lower for 35
(around 0.6) compared to 30
(close to 1).
The 20
and 25
pitch ampliude cases did not reach the optimum C

P
value because turbine speeds could not
be increased above 870 rpm (corresponds to TSR = 1.1) due to some resonance issues in the experimental
setup.
Note that, only time averaged performance from all the four blades were measured in these wind tunnel
tests. Therefore, even though these experiments are useful in understanding the average performance of the
turbine and how it changes with dierent parameters, it would not shed any light on the aerodynamics of
each blade as it moves around the azimuth and how exactly is the power being extracted with such a turbine.
This is the motivation for developing the present CFD analysis. However, before the CFD model could be
used for understanding the physics, it should be validated with the test data. Figures. 6(a) and 6(b) shows
excellent correlation between the CFD predicted C
P
values and the present test data for 20
and 25
blade
pitch amplitudes. Once the model was validated, the next step would be to utilize this model to understand
this concept. However, before that, it is essential to introduce the idea of virtual camber and incidence
eects (ow curvature eects) experienced by the turbine blades as they move along a circular trajectory.
Flow curvature eects play a signicant role in the instantaneous aerodynamic forces experienced by the
blade especially when the chord to radius is high as in the case of the present turbine (c/R=0.5).
(a) Virtual camber and incidence in a curvilinear ow. (b) Schematic explaining virtual camber.
Figure 7. Schematic explaining virtual camber and incidence (ow curvature) eects.
C. Flow Curvature Eects (Virtual Camber and Incidence Eects)
Virtual camber/incidence eect is an aerodynamic phenomenon that would occur when the blades undergo
an orbital motion and therefore experience a curvilinear ow [15, 16]. Blades subjected to a curvilinear ow
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behave very dierently compared to being immersed in a rectilinear ow (Fig. 7(a)). In a curvilinear ow,
the local velocity and angle of attack of the blade are unique at dierent locations on the chord. Because
of this, a symmetric blade at 0
pitch angle in a curvilinear ow can be viewed to behave like a cambered

blade at an angle of incidence (
i
) in a rectilinear ow (Fig. 7(a)). This eect will be more pronounced with
VAWTs having large chord-to-radius ratio (c/R).
The virtual camber eect is clearly explained using Fig. 7(b) which shows a symmetric airfoil at a pitch
angle of 0
at the bottom-most point of the blade trajectory. Point A is the pitching axis of the blade.
For the sake of explanation, resultant velocity at any location on the blade chord is assumed a function of
the rotational speed only (the freestream velocity and the pitch rate eects are ignored). Thus, as shown
in Fig. 7(b), the magnitude and direction of the resultant velocity varies along the chord. The angle of
incidence of the ow at any arbitrary location on the chord, x, is given by
x
= tan
1
(x/R) (
x
x/R)
and the velocity magnitude is given by R
where R
R
2
+x
2
.
Now this scenario is approximately equivalent to having a cambered airfoil, with the camber line slope
(dy/dx) equal to
x
in a rectilinear ow of magnitude R as shown in Fig. 7(a). Because of the large
chord/radius ratio (c/R=0.5) of the present turbine, using a linear approximation, virtual camber is about
6% of chord and the virtual incidence is about 7
. Virtual camber is directly dependent on the chord/radius

ratio of the turbine and the virtual incidence depends on both the chord/radius ratio and the chordwise
location of blade pitching axis, which in the present turbine is at quarter chord. Decreasing the distance of
the blade pitching axis location from the leading edge increases virtual incidence for a xed chord/radius
ratio. For a pitching axis location of 50% chord from the leading edge, the virtual incidence is zero.
0 90 180 270 360
0.8
0.6
0.4
0.2
0
0.2
0.4
0.6
0.8
Azimuthal location, (deg)
C
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,

C
P

20
25
30

Power extracted
from flow
Frontal half Rear half
Power lost
to flow
Figure 8. Variation of coecient of power (C
P
) for one blade as it goes around the azimuth for 20
, 25
and
30
blade pitch amplitudes obtained using CFD (positive C

P
denotes power extraction and negative C
P
is
power lost to the ow).
D. Understanding the Physics of Power Extraction
In order to improve the eciency of this concept, it is important to develop a deeper understanding of its
physics. The rst step was to use the validated CFD model to obtain the power extracted by one blade on
a 4-bladed turbine as it goes around the azimuth. Figure 8 shows the variation of CFD-predicted coecient
of power (C
P
) for one blade as it goes around the azimuth for 20
, 25
and 30
blade pitch amplitudes and

a tip speed ratio of 1. In this gure, positive C
P
P
is power lost to
the ow. It is interesting to see that the for all the three pitch amplitudes, the blade extracts energy in the
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frontal half of the turbine (=0
to =180
), however, puts some of the extracted energy back into the ow

in the rear half (=180
to =360
).
The power extracted by the blade at any instant, is the product of the instantaneous tangential aero-
dynamic force experienced by the blade and the blade speed. If the blade is moving in the same direction
as the tangential force, the power is positive or the blade is extracting power and if the blade is moving
opposite to the direction of tangential force, the power is negative or the blade is losing energy into the ow.
Therefore, it should be possible to explain the power variation shown in Fig. 8 by examining the aerodynamic
forces experienced by the blade at dierent azimuthal locations. Key to obtaining the aerodynamic force is
computing the resultant velocity and blade angle of attack, which could be calculated from blade kinematics,
local wind speed and also incorporating the virtual camber and incidence due to the ow curvature eects.
The only unknown here is the local wind velocity, which could be obtained from the CFD predicted oweld.
2.5 2 1.5 1 0.5 0 0.5 1 1.5 2 2.5
2.5
2
1.5
1
0.5
0
0.5
1
1.5
2
2.5
X distance from center (in radii)
Y

d
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c
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f
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m

c
e
n
t
e
r

(
i
n

r
a
d
i
i
)Upstream Downstream
Figure 9. Flow prole viewed from top, averaged over a revolution, upstream and downstream of the turbine,
where velocity is normalized by U
inf
and distance by turbine radius (center of the turbine, X=0 and Y =0).
Figure 9 shows the CFD computed velocity prole across the turbine averaged over a revolution, upstream
and downstream of the turbine, where velocity is normalized by U
inf
and distance by turbine radius. In
the downstream section, the momentum decit caused due to power extraction could be clearly seen. The
same information is shown in a more quantitative form in Figs. 10(a) and 10(b), which show the X and Y
components of the time-averaged wind velocity, respectively, at dierent distances upstream and downstream
of the turbine. From, Figs. 9 and 10, it can be seen that there is not much decrease in wind speed ahead
of the turbine (X distance = -2, -1.5 and -1 radii). However, after the ow passes the frontal half of the
turbine, the free stream velocity drops to almost half its value at least along X axis. Therefore, the ow
intersects the blade around = 270
with almost half the speed. It also interesting to see that the ow
velocity increases slightly as it passes across the rear half (X distance = 1 radius) which is consistent with
power lost to the ow in the rear section (Fig. 8).
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1 0.5 0 0.5 1 1.5 2
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2
1
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Normalized velocity (Xcomponent), U/U
inf
Y

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f
r
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0.5
1
1.5
2
X distance from
center (in radii)
(ve upstream,
+ve downstream)
Momentum
deficiency
downstream
(a) Velocity component along X axis (U).
0.5 0 0.5 1 1.5
3
2
1
0
1
2
3
Normalized velocity (Ycomponent), V/U
inf
Y

d
i
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f
r
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m

c
e
n
t
e
r

(
i
n

r
a
d
i
i
)

2
1.5
1
0.5
0
0.5
1
1.5
2
X distance from
center (in radii)
(ve upstream,
+ve downstream)
(b) Velocity component along Y axis (V ).
Figure 10. Variation of X and Y velocity components (U and V ) across the turbine diameter (along Y axis)
averaged about one revolution.
Having obtained the average ow velocities across the turbine, it is now possible to calculate the resultant
velocity and the blade angle of attack at dierent azimuthal locations, which could be used to explain the
magnitude and direction of the blade forces. Figure 11 shows the CFD predicted oweld (pressure contours
with streamlines superimposed) with relative ow velocities and blade forces for a turbine operating at 25
blade pitch amplitude at tip speed ratio (TSR) of 1. Note that, the length and direction of the arrows
denoting the dierent velocity components are proportional to the actual velocity vectors. The gure also
shows the virtual blade with the induced camber and incidence, which could increase or decrease the eective
pitch angle of the blade, depending on the azimuthal location. For the pressure contours, the pressure is
normalized with the free stream static pressure or the atmospheric pressure.
It was shown in Fig. 8 that the maximum power extraction occurs in the frontal half especially close to
= 90
. Therefore, it is important to closely examine the oweld around the blade and forces experienced
by the blade at = 90
using Fig. 11. As shown in the gure, at this location, because of the large angle
of attack and signicant virtual camber, the blade produces a high lift force which is shown by the large
low pressure region (denoted by blue) on top of the blade. A signicant component of this lift force would
contribute to the blade tangential force which is also in the same direction of the blade motion, leading to
a high positive power or power extraction. Figure 8 also showed that the blade loses energy to the ow in
the rear half of the turbine and the power loss is maximum around = 270
. Even this could be explained

from Fig. 11. From the gure, it can be seen that, at = 270
, the virtually cambered blade operates at

a very small angle of attack, however, the camber would increase lift which is acting in such a direction
that the tangential force is opposite to the direction of blade motion and hence produce negative power (or
power is lost to the ow). The resultant velocity at this location was calculated assuming that the ow
velocity is decreased by half, which was observed previously from Figs. 9 and 10. It is also interesting to see
that in all these cases the ow curvature eects (virtual camber and incidence) helps in slightly improving
power extraction in the frontal half, however, it greatly increases the power loss in the rear half. In such a
case, it might be better to have blades with smaller chord/radius ratio on these type of VAWTs to improve
performance in the rear. Even better would be to have cambered blades, such that it which would enhance
the camber in the frontal half and nullify the camber in the rear. Instead of having symmetric pitching, a
non-zero mean pitch angle might also improve performance.
In the previous two azimuthal locations, only lift force was considered because no blade stall was observed
in the CFD analysis and therefore the lift force is much higher than the drag force. However, at = 0
,
even though the lift force is high because of large resultant speed, there is no component in the tangential
direction and hence does not contribute to power. However, there was a slight negative power at this location
(Fig. 8) because of the drag force acting opposite to the blade motion. At = 180
, the power is almost

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Figure 11. Physics of power extraction explained using simple aerodynamics and the CFD predicted oweld
(pressure contours with streamlines superimposed) for a turbine operating at 25
blade pitch amplitude at tip

speed ratio (TSR) of 1.
zero because the resultant speed is zero for a tip speed ratio of 1.
Figures 12(a) and 12(b) show the CFD predicted pressure contours with streamlines for 20
and 30
pitch amplitudes, respectively. Comparing these gures, it can be seen that even though there are small
dierences in the actual magnitude of the pressure eld, the fundamental physics still stays the same as
explained in Fig. 11. This clearly explains the physics of power extraction on a variable pitch VAWT and
establishes the fact that the reason for poor performance in the rear half of the turbine in not because the
frontal half has extracted all the power from the ow, in which case, the rear half performance could not
improved. Therefore, this indicates the potential for huge improvements in VAWT performance with novel
blade kinematics, lower chord/radius ratio, and even cambered blades, which can extract power or at least,
minimize power loss in the rear half.
E. Eect of Tip Speed Ratio
It would be useful to investigate the eect of tip speed ratio to understand why the performance of the
present turbine was highest close to TSR of 1. Figure 13 shows the variation of CFD-predicted coecient
of power (C
P
) for one blade as it goes around the azimuth at 25
blade pitch amplitude for tip speed ratios

(TSR) of 0.6, 1, and 1.4. The tip speed ratio is changed by changing the turbine rotational speed for a xed
wind speed. It is interesting to see that the power extraction in the frontal half increases with increasing
tip speed ratio, however, at the same time the power lost to the ow in the rear half, also increases with
increasing TSR. A general explanation for this could be the fact that if more power is extracted from the
ow in the frontal half there is less power left in the ow to be extracted in the rear half. However, it is
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(a) Pitch amplitude = 20
. (b) Pitch amplitude = 30
.
Figure 12. CFD predicted oweld (pressure contours with streamlines superimposed) for a turbine operating
at 20
and 30
blade pitch amplitudes at tip speed ratio (TSR) of 1.

0 90 180 270 360
1
0.5
0
0.5
1
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P

0.6
1.0
1.4
TSR
Power extracted
from flow
Power lost
to flow
P
blade
pitch amplitude for tip speed ratios (TSR) of 0.6, 1, and 1.4, obtained using CFD (positive C
P
denotes power
extraction and negative C
P
is power lost to the ow).
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(a) Tip speed ratio (TSR) = 0.6. (b) Tip speed ratio (TSR) = 1.4.
Figure 14. Physics of power extraction for dierent tip speeds ratios explained using simple aerodynamics
and the CFD predicted oweld for a variable-pitch turbine operating at a 25

important to look more carefully at the CFD results to understand the reason behind this.
Figures 14(a) and 14(b) explains the physics at advance ratios of 0.6 and 1.4 respectively, using the CFD
measured ow eld. Figure 13 shows that the power extracted by the blade at 90
azimuthal location (front)

is almost three times higher at TSR = 1.4 compared to 0.6. In Fig. 14(a), at =90
, it can be seen that the

blade is operating at an extremely high angle of attack and is probably close to stall. Based on the pressure
contours, the vortex on top of the blade is close to being shed. This means lower lift and higher drag values
and drag has a tangential component opposite to the direction of blade motion, unlike lift. Along with the
lower lift to drag ratio in this case, it should be noted that the resultant velocity itself is much smaller than
the TSR = 1.4 case because of the lower rotational speed of the turbine and hence the actual magnitudes of
lift and drag are smaller. The smaller tangential force coupled with the fact that the blade itself is moving
slower would result in much lower power extracted compared to a higher TSR case.
Examining the 90
azimuthal location in Fig. 14(b) (TSR = 1.4), it can be seen that the blade angle of
attack is much below stall, which would increase the lift to drag ratio compared the lower TSR case, which
along with the higher resultant velocity would result in a higher tangential force in the direction of motion.
Higher tangential force coupled with higher blade speed would signicantly enhance power extraction.
It would be also interesting to see what happens at rear half of the turbine specically at 270
azimuthal
location, where the higher tip speed ratio case (TSR = 1.4) is losing signicant amount of power back into the
ow, whereas the almost no power is lost for the lower TSR case (TSR = 0.6) (Fig. 13). Examining =270
location for the 0.6 TSR case from Fig. 14(a), it can be seen that, based on the direction of resultant velocity,
the blade is close to zero lift angle of attack, and this could be the reason why the blade is not producing any
lift as shown by the CFD pressure contours. However, the blade could be producing a small drag force and
that could be the reason for the small negative power at =270
in Fig. 13. However, examining =270
location for the 1.4 TSR case (Fig. 14(b)), it can be seen that the blade is operating at an angle of attack
which would produce a high lift to drag ratio. Unfortunately, at this location, both lift and drag forces
contribute to a tangential force opposite to the direction of blade motion and hence leads to large negative
power.
F. Variable Pitch versus Constant Pitch
Having understood the operating principle of a variable-pitch VAWT, it would be interesting to compare
it to a xed-pitch VAWT and also try to understand the reason for the lower eciency with the latter
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conguration. Even though, an attempt was made to perform wind tunnel experiments on a xed-pitch
turbine, the results were not consistent because of the extremely low values of the torque and rotational
speed measured at 10 m/s wind speed. Therefore, the CFD analysis was used to investigate the xed-pitch
VAWT concept.
Figure 15(a) shows the variation of coecient of power (C
P
) with tip speed ratio (TSR) for xed-pitch and
variable-pitch turbines. In this case, the variable-pitch turbine was operating at 20
pitch amplitude and

the xed-pitch at +20
constant pitch angle. As shown in the gure, the xed-pitch turbine had extremely
low eciency and at higher TSRs, it was operating at negative C
P
s which would not be practically feasible.
To understand this, it is important to look at the time history of power extraction for one blade, which is
shown in Figure 15(b) for TSR = 1. As shown in the gure, for the xed-pitch turbine, much less power is
extracted in the front and slightly more power is lost to the ow in the rear.
0 0.5 1 1.5 2
0.4
0.2
0
0.2
0.4
C
o
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,

C
P

Variable pitch, 20
(CFD)
Constant pitch, +20
(CFD)
P
) with tip speed
ratio (TSR) for xed-pitch and variable-pitch turbines.
0 90 180 270 360
0.6
0.4
0.2
0
0.2
0.4
0.6
C
o
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p
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,

C
P

Variable pitch, 20
(CFD)
Constant pitch, +20
(CFD)
Power extracted
from flow
Power lost
to flow
(b) Variation of coecient of power (C
P
) for one blade as
it goes around the azimuth on xed-pitch and variable-
pitch turbines for TSR = 1, obtained using CFD (pos-
itive C
P
P
is
power lost to the ow).
Figure 15. Coecient power (C
P
) for variable- (20
pitch amplitude) and xed-pitch (+20
xed pitch angle)

turbines obtained using CFD.
It is important to look at the blade aerodynamics and oweld (Figure 16) to explain this behavior. It
is important to rst examine the ow in the rear because the blade pitch angle for the xed-pitch case at
=90
(front) is similar to the variable-pitch case. However, in the rear (=270
), as shown in Fig. 16 the

blade is pitched in the direction opposite to that of the variable-pitch case. Because of this, the blade is
operating at reverse camber and also at a large angle of attack leading to massive ow separation as shown
by the pressure contours and even the streamlines near the blade. This could lead to a huge drag force,
resulting in a large tangential force opposite to the blade motion leading to negative power. However, in the
front (=90
), the basic ow physics for the xed pitch case is not very dierent from the variable pitch
case (Figure 11). Even then the power extraction at =90
was much lower than the variable-pitch case

(Fig. 15(b)). This could be because of the fact that massive blu-body type of separation in the rear half
for the xed-pitch case is even aecting the ow upstream in the frontal half. This can be conrmed by
examining the streamlines from the front to rear half, near the center of the turbine.
This clearly shows the importance of blade pitch modulation in avoiding blade stall in the rear half
of the turbine, which not only aects the ow in the rear, but also in the front. This is the reason for
the huge performance enhancement obtained by dynamically pitching the blades. However, this study only
investigated one pitch angle for the xed-pitch VAWT and therefore, performance could be improved, may
be with a smaller pitch angle. Even then, the ow separation in the rear half would not be easy to avoid
especially when the blades have large chord/radius ratio (large reverse camber in the rear). From these
observations it is not dicult to conclude that the performance of a xed-pitch turbine could be enhanced
by reducing the pitch angle and chord/radius ratio, or by using cambered blades. Fixed pitch turbine could
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Figure 16. Physics of power extraction explained using simple aerodynamics and the CFD predicted oweld
(pressure contours with streamlines superimposed) for a turbine operating with a xed 20
blade pitch angle

at tip speed ratio (TSR) of 1.
(a) Variable-pitch turbine. (b) Fixed-pitch turbine.
Figure 17. Complete oweld (pressure contours with streamlines superimposed) of variable and xed pitch
turbines.
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also perform better at higher tip speed ratios because it could reduce the angle of attack in the rear half and
avoid stall.
Figures 17(a) and 17(b) show the entire oweld for a variable-pitch and xed-pitch turbine. Streamtube
expansion could be clearly seen in these gures, which denotes power extraction from the ow. However,
note that, the ow is extremely chaotic for the xed-pitch VAWT and very orderly for the variable-pitch
case, which is also an indication of the relative ineciency of the xed-pitch concept. Another important
conclusion from this result is that, if these turbines are going to be used in a farm conguration, where
the turbines will be placed close to each other, it would be very unattractive to have a xed-pitch turbine
because of the chaotic wake.
0 0.5 1 1.5 2
0
0.1
0.2
0.3
0.4
C
o
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f
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o
f

p
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,

C
P

40,000
100,000
200,000
300,000
Reynolds number
P
) with tip speed
ratio (TSR) at dierent Reynolds numbers.
0.4 1 2 3 4
x 10
5
0.28
0.3
0.32
0.34
0.36
Reynolds number
M
a
x
i
m
u
m

C
P
(b) Variation of maximum coecient of power (C
Pmax
)
as a function of Reynolds number.
Figure 18. Coecient power (C
P
) for variable-pitch turbine operating at 25
pitch amplitude for dierent

Reynolds numbers obtained using CFD.
G. Eect of Reynolds number
Scalability of the experimental results is a major concern in wind turbine experimental research because most
wind tunnel studies are carried out at much lower Reynolds numbers than the actual turbine. As discussed
in the beginning, the long-term goal of the present research is to develop a small-scale turbine (around 2
meters in diameter) with a peak power output of close to 1-2 kW. Such a turbine would operate at a Reynolds
number around 200,000, whereas all the current experimental studies were conducted at a Reynolds number
of 40,000. Therefore, CFD studies were conducted at dierent Reynolds numbers to examine if the physics
is very dierent at higher Reynolds numbers.
Figure 18(a) shows the variation of coecient power (C
P
) with tip speed ratio for variable-pitch turbine
operating at 25
pitch amplitude at Reynolds numbers of 40,000, 100,000, 200,000 and 300,000. Even
though the trends remain the same, as shown in Fig. 18(b), the maximum achievable C
P
increases with
Reynolds numbers. It can be seen that the rate of increase in C
Pmax
with Reynolds number decreases
with increase in Reynolds numbers. Figure 19 shows the azimuthal variation of C
P
for dierent Reynolds
numbers. The power extraction improves with increasing Reynolds number in the frontal half, however,
Reynolds number has no eect in the rear half. This could be because of the fact that in the present turbine,
the blade is operating at relatively higher angle of attack in the frontal half (as shown in Fig. 11) where
the Reynolds number would have an eect on blade lift and drag coecients. However, in the rear half the
angles of attack are much smaller (Fig. 11), in which case the Reynolds number would have low inuence.
Figures 20(a) and 20(b) shows the CFD predicted pressure contours with streamlines for Reynolds num-
bers of 40,000 and 300,000, respectively. It can be seen that the owelds are very similar except at =90
,
where the low pressure region on top of the blade is slightly stronger at 300,000 Reynolds number which is
due to the higher lift producing capability of the blade at higher Reynolds numbers. This is also the reason
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0 90 180 270 360
0.8
0.6
0.4
0.2
0
0.2
0.4
0.6
0.8
C
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C
P

40,000
100,000
200,000
300,000
Power extracted
from flow
Reynolds number
Power lost
to flow
P
blade
pitch amplitude for a tip speed ratio (TSR) of 1 at dierent Reynolds numbers, obtained using CFD (positive
C
P
P
is power lost to the ow).
(a) Reynolds number = 40,000. (b) Reynolds number = 300,000.
Figure 20. CFD predicted oweld (pressure contours with streamlines superimposed) for a turbine operating
at 25
blade pitch amplitude and TSR = 1, at two dierent Reynolds numbers.

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for the higher power extraction in the frontal half. However, overall, there was no fundamental dierence
in ow physics with Reynolds numbers, which indicates that the experimental results at lower Reynolds
numbers are in fact scalable to full scale Reynolds numbers ( 200,000).
V. SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS
The present study focuses on utilizing a combined experimental and computational (2-D CFD) approach to
investigate the performance of a VAWT utilizing dynamic blade pitching, operating at a Reynolds number of
around 40,000. A VAWT prototype with a simplied blade pitch mechanism was designed, built and tested
in the wind tunnel to understand the role of blade pitching kinematics on turbine aerodynamic eciency.
Only symmetric pitch kinematics (zero mean pitch angle), with zero pitch phasing (maximum pitch angle
occurs in front (=90
) and rear (=270
)), was investigated in the present study. A 2-D CFD model was
developed and the model predictions correlated extremely well with test data. The validated CFD model
was used to develop a fundamental understanding of the physics of power extraction on such a turbine. The
following are specic conclusions drawn from this study:
1. A novel simplied passive blade pitching mechanism has been developed for the present VAWT proto-
type, where the blade pitching is kinematically coupled to turbine rotation. In the present mechanism,
the phasing of blade cyclic pitching could be actively changed depending on the direction of incoming
wind to maximize eciency. This method of altering the phasing of blade pitching is instantaneous
and much simpler than rotating the entire HAWT in the direction of the wind. This capability of the
present VAWT pitch mechanism, to immediately respond to a change in wind direction, is the key to
maximizing power extraction in urban environments where wind direction changes rapidly.
2. Both experimental and CFD studies showed that the turbine eciency is a strong function of blade
pitching amplitude, with the highest eciency occurring around 20
to 25
amplitude. It was also

important to see that the optimum tip speed ratio for maximum eciency decreased with increasing
pitch amplitude.
3. For all the pitching amplitudes described in the present study, it was observed that the blade extracts
all the power in the frontal half, however, it loses power back into the ow in the rear half. One key
reason for this is the large virtual camber and incidence induced by the ow curvature eects, which
slightly enhances the power extraction in the frontal half, but greatly increases the power loss in the
rear half. In such a scenario, it might better to have blades with smaller chord/radius ratio on these
type of VAWTs to improve performance in the rear. Even better would be to have cambered blades,
such that it would enhance the camber in the frontal half and nullify the camber in the rear.
4. Increasing the tip speed ratio for a variable-pitch turbine increased the power extraction in the front
but also increased power loss in the rear. The reason for this is the increase in magnitude of the forces
and blade speed with increasing TSR. Also, the optimum TSR for maximum power extraction was a
function of blade kinematics.
5. For the same pitch angle (20
), a xed pitch turbine had lower eciency than the variable pitch turbine
owing to the massive blade stall in the rear half caused by the large angle of attack and high reverse
camber. This large ow separation was even aecting the ow eld in the frontal half. Again, the
performance of the xed-pitch turbines could be enhanced by reducing the pitch angle and chord/radius
ratio, or by using cambered blades. Fixed pitch turbine could also perform better at higher tip speed
ratios because it could reduce the angle of attack in the rear half and avoid stall.
6. The CFD study showed that the maximum achievable C
P
for the turbine increases with higher Reynolds
numbers. However, the rate of increase decreased with increasing Reynolds numbers. For an increase
of Reynolds number from 40,000 to 300,000, there was an increase in maximum power of about 15%.
The reason for this increase is because of the increased power extraction in the frontal half at higher
Reynolds numbers resulting from the blades operating at higher lift-to-drag ratio. The power in the
rear half remained relatively unchanged with increasing Reynolds number for the pitching kinematics
investigated in the present study.
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VI. ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
Authors would also like to thank Professor Allen Winkelmann for providing the opportunity to conduct
experiments in the open-jet wind tunnel facility at the University of Maryland.
References
1
Kirke, B. K., Evaluation of Self-Starting Vertical Axis Wind Turbines For Stand-Alone Applications, Ph.D Thesis,
School of Engineering, Grith University Gold Coast Campus, April 1998.
2
Dabiri, J. O., Potential order-of-magnitude enhancement of wind farm power density via counter-rotating vertical-axis
wind turbine arrays, Journal of Renewable and Sustainable Energy, Vol. 3, 2011, pp. 043104-1 043104-12.
3
McGowan, R., Lozano, R., Raghav, V., and Komerath, N., Vertical Axis Micro Wind Turbine Design for Low Tip Speed
Ratios, Proceedings of the 3rd International Multi-Conference on Complexity, Informatics and Cybernetics, Orlando, FL,
March 25 28, 2012.
4
Parashivoiu, I., and Delclaux, F., Double Multiple Streamtube Model with Recent Improvements, Journal of Energy,
Vol. 7, No. 3, May June 1983, pp. 250 255.
5
Parashivoiu, I., Trifu, O., and Saeed, F., H-Darrieus Wind Turbine with Blade Pitch Control, International Journal of
Rotating Machinery, Vol. 2009, 2009, pp. 1 7.
6
Asher, I. M., Drela, M., and Peraire, J., A Low Order Model for Vertical Axis Wind Turbines, Proceedings of the 28th
AIAA Applied Aerodynamics Conference, Chicago, IL, June 28 July 1, 2010.
7
Lakshminarayan, V. K., Computational Investigation of Micro-Scale Coaxial Rotor Aerodynamics in Hover, Ph.D.
dissertation, Department of Aerospace Engineering, University of Maryland at College Park, 2009.
8
Pulliam, T., and Chaussee, D., A Diagonal Form of an Implicit Approximate Factorization Algorithm, Journal of
Computational Physics, Vol. 39, (2), February 1981, pp. 347363.
9
Van Leer B., Towards the Ultimate Conservative Dierence Scheme V. A Second-Order Sequel To Godunovs Method,
Journal of Computational Physics, Vol. 135, No. 2, 1997, pp. 229-248.
10
Roe, P., Approximate Riemann Solvers, Parameter Vectors and Dierence Schemes, Journal of Computational Physics,
Vol. 135, No. 2, 1997, pp. 250-258.
11
Koren, B., Multigrid and Defect Correction for the Steady Navier-Stokes Equations, Proceedings of the 11th Interna-
tional Conference on Numerical Methods in Fluid Dynamics , Willamsburg, VA, June 1988.
12
Turkel, E., Preconditioning Techniques in Computational Fluid Dynamics, Annual Review of Fluid Mechanics, Vol. 31,
1999, pp. 385416
13
Spalart, P. R., and Allmaras, S. R., A One-equation Turbulence Model for Aerodynamic Flows, AIAA Paper 1992-0439,
30th AIAA Aerospace Sciences Meeting and Exhibit, Reno, NV, January 69, 1992.
14
Lee, Y., On Overset Grids Connectivity and Automated Vortex Tracking in Rotorcraft CFD, Ph.D. Dissertation,
Department of Aerospace Engineering, University of Maryland at College Park, 2008.
15
Migliore, P. G., Wolfe, W. P., and Fanuccif, J. B., Flow Curvature Eects on Darrieus Turbine Blade Aerodynamics,
Journal of Energy, Vol. 4, (2), 1980, pp. 4955
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Benedict, M., Fundamental Understanding of the Cycloidal-Rotor Concept for Micro Air Vehicle Applications, Ph.D
Thesis, Department of Aerospace Engineering, University of Maryland College Park, December 2010.
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Fundamental Understanding of The Physics of A Small-Scale Vertical Axis Wind Turbine With Dynamic Blade Pitching: An Experimental and Computational Approach

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Fundamental Understanding of The Physics of A Small-Scale Vertical Axis Wind Turbine With Dynamic Blade Pitching: An Experimental and Computational Approach

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Fundamental Understanding of the Physics of a Small-Scale

Vertical Axis Wind Turbine with Dynamic Blade Pitching: An

Assistant Research Scientist, moble@umd.edu

Postdoctoral Fellow, vinodkl@stanford.edu

Undergraduate Research Assistant, jpino@umd.edu

Alfred Gessow Professor and Director, chopra@umd.edu

) and rear ( = 270

) locations and close to zero pitch

) and bottom ( = 180

) points in the circular blade trajectory. The only two

Blade pitch amplitude

blade pitch amplitudes (Reynolds number = 40,000).

blade pitch amplitude.

blade pitch amplitude.

blade pitch amplitudes is given in Fig. 5. C

blade pitch amplitudes have very similar

producing slightly higher C

. This could be due to

pitch amplitudes, the tip speed

(around 0.6) compared to 30

pitch ampliude cases did not reach the optimum C

pitch angle in a curvilinear ow can be viewed to behave like a cambered

. Virtual camber is directly dependent on the chord/radius

Blade pitch amplitude

blade pitch amplitudes obtained using CFD (positive C

blade pitch amplitudes and

), however, puts some of the extracted energy back into the ow

. Even this could be explained

, the virtually cambered blade operates at

, the power is almost

blade pitch amplitude at tip

blade pitch amplitude for tip speed ratios

. (b) Pitch amplitude = 30

blade pitch amplitudes at tip speed ratio (TSR) of 1.

blade pitch amplitude.

azimuthal location (front)

, it can be seen that the

in Fig. 13. However, examining =270

pitch amplitude and

pitch amplitude) and xed-pitch (+20

xed pitch angle)

(front) is similar to the variable-pitch case. However, in the rear (=270

), as shown in Fig. 16 the

was much lower than the variable-pitch case

blade pitch angle

pitch amplitude for dierent

blade pitch amplitude and TSR = 1, at two dierent Reynolds numbers.

) and rear (=270

amplitude. It was also

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