Aerodynamic performance enhancement of a vertical-axis wind turbine by a biomimetic flap

We improve the aerodynamic performance of a simplified vertical-axis wind turbine (VAWT) using a biomimetic flap, inspired by the movement of secondary feathers of a bird's wing at landing (Liebe 1979<i>Aerokurier</i><b>12</b>54). The VAWT considered has three NACA0018 straight blades at the Reynolds number of80000based on the turbine diameter and free-stream velocity. The biomimetic flap is made of a rigid rectangular curved plate, and its streamwise length is 0.2<i>c</i>and axial (spanwise) length is the same as that of blade, where<i>c</i>is the blade chord length. This device is installed on the inner surface of each blade. Its one side is attached near the blade leading edge (pivot point), and the other side automatically rotates around the pivot point (without external power input) in response to the surrounding flow field during blade rotation. The flap increases the time-averaged power coefficient by 88% at the tip-speed ratio of 0.8, when its pivot point is at 0.1<i>c</i>downstream from the blade leading edge. While the torque on the blade itself does not change even in the presence of the flap, the flap itself generates additional torque, thus increasing the overall power coefficient. The phase analysis indicates that the power coefficient of VAWT significantly increases during flap opening to full deployment through the interaction with vortices separated from the blade leading edge. When the pivot point of flap is farther downstream from the leading edge or the flap operates at a high tip-speed ratio, the performance of the flap diminishes due to its weaker interaction with the separating vortices.