Wind energy

[27] Wind Tunnel Experiment on Performance of Orthopter-type Wind Turbine in a Shear Flow

Takahiro Kiwata¹, ○Taiki Sugawara¹, Takaaki Kono¹, Nobuyoshi Komatsu¹ (1.kanazawa university)

Keywords:Orthopter-type Wind Turbine, VAWT, Power Coefficient, Shear Flow

The present experiment aims to investigate the environmental condition of tornadogenesis. We employed the multifan wind tunnel in Miyazaki University in order to simulate environmental wind, and also use a smoke machine to simulate cold outflow. We filmed several horizontal planes across tornado-like vortex with hi-speed camera and calculated velocity field by using a dynamic-PIV method. The tornado-like vortex was found to move away from the cold outflow and its maximum tangential velocity became larger as the mean wind shear reproduced by multifan wind tunnel became higher. However, the diameter of the tornado-like vortex was kept almost constant. When the uniform wind was reproduced by the multifan wind tunnel, the flow pattern of outflow changed dramatically and the rotation direction of the tornado-like vortex changed due to the change of horizontal shear around the outflow.