364 research outputs found
Experimental Study Of Flow Field Of An Aerofoil Shaped Diffuser With A Porous Screen Simulating The Rotor
No full textThis study presents an experimental investigation on a diffuser augmented wind turbine (DAWT). A screen mesh is used to simulate the energy extraction mechanisms of a wind turbine in experiment. Different screen porosities corresponding to different turbine loading coefficients are tested. Measurements of the axial force and of the velocity distribution in radial direction are reported. The general purpose is to highlight the dependency between the diffuser and the screen, and to compare the radial velocity distributions in the diffuser between unloaded and loaded conditions. It is shown that the thrust on an unshrouded screen is lower than on a shrouded screen, under the same inflow condition. Moreover, the thrust on the diffuser largely depends on the screen loading. For the present configuration, the thrust on the screen with high loading coefficient contributes for more than 70% of the total thrust on the DAWT. Smoke visualizations and radial velocity profiles reveal that the high loading screen induces flow separation on the outer surface of the diffuser, justifying the results of the thrust measurements. It is also inferred that the flow separation leads to loss of thrust and has a great effect on the total pressure drag. It should be emphasized that the experimental results indicate that the flow field around the diffuser is strongly affected by the choice of screen porosity, that is, turbine loading. And that, the thrust coefficient of the diffuser does not show a linear dependence on the thrust coefficient of the screen. The axial momentum theory, therefore, is not a solid predictor for DAWT performance with high loaded screens
Computational Study Of Diffuser Augmented Wind Turbine Using Actuator Disc Force Method
No full textIn this paper, a computational approach, based on the solution of Reynolds-averaged-Navier–Stokes (RANS) equations, to describe the flow within and around a diffuser augmented wind turbine (DAWT) is reported. In order to reduce the computational cost, the turbine is modeled as an actuator disc (AD) that imposes a resistance to the passage of the flow. The effect of the AD is modeled applying two body forces, upstream and downstream of the AD, such that they impose a desired pressure jump. Comparison with experiments carried out in similar conditions shows a good agreement suggesting that the adopted methodology is able to carefully reproduce real flow features
Experimental investigation on the effect of the duct geometrical parameters on the performance of a ducted wind turbine
No full textThis paper reports an experimental investigation on the effect of the duct geometry on the aerodynamic performance of an aerofoil shaped ducted wind turbine (DWT). The tested two-dimensional model is composed of an aerofoil equipped with pressure taps and a uniform porous screen. The experimental setup is based on the assumption that the duct flow is axisymmetric and the rotor can be simulated as an actuator disc. Firstly, different tip clearances between the screen and the aerofoil are tested to point out the influence of this parameter on the DWT performance in terms of aerofoil pressure distribution, aerofoil lift and flow field features at the duct exit area. Then, the combined effect of tip clearance, of the angle of attack and of the screen position along the aerofoil chord is evaluated through a Design of Experiments (DoE) based approach. The analysis shows that, among the analysed range of design factor variation, increasing angle of attack and the tip clearance leads to a beneficial effect on the lift and back-pressure coefficients, while they show a poor dependence upon the screen axial position. Finally, the configuration characterized by the maximum value of all three main factors (15 degree of angle of attack, 5% of tip clearance and 30% backward to the nozzle plane), has the best values of lift coefficient and back-pressure coefficient.Wind Energ
Towards improving the aerodynamic performance of a ducted wind turbine: A numerical study
No full textThis paper aims to study the aerodynamic performance of ducted wind turbines (DWT) using inviscid and viscous flow calculations by accounting for the mutual interaction between the duct and the rotor. Two generalized duct cross section geometries are considered while the rotor is modelled as an actuator disc with constant thrust coefficient. The analysis shows the opportunity to significantly increase the overall aerodynamic performance of the DWT by a correct choice of the optimal rotor loading for a given duct geometry. Present results clearly indicate that the increased duct cross section camber leads to an improved performance for a DWT. Finally, some insights on the changes occurring to the performance coefficients are obtained through a detailed flow analysis
Effects of yawed inflow on the aerodynamic and aeroacoustic performance of ducted wind turbines
No full textDucted Wind Turbines (DWTs) can be used for energy harvesting in urban areas where non-uniform inflows might be the cause of aerodynamic and acoustic performance degradation. For this reason, an aerodynamic and aero-acoustic analysis of DWTs in yawed inflow condition is performed for two duct geometries: a baseline commercial DWT model, DonQi®, and one with a duct having a higher cross-section camber with respect to the baseline, named DonQi D5. The latter has been obtained from a previous optimization study. A numerical investigation using Lattice-Boltzmann Very-Large-Eddy Simulations is presented. Data confirm that the aerodynamic performance improvement, i.e. increase of the power coefficient, is proportional to the increase of the duct thrust force coefficient. It is found that, placing the DWT at a yaw angle of 7.5 , the aerodynamic performances of the DonQi D5 DWT model are less affected by the yaw angle. On the other hand, this configuration shows an increase of broadband noise with respect to the baseline DonQi® one, both in non-yawed and yawed inflow conditions. This is associated to turbulent boundary layer trailing edge noise due to the turbulent flow structures developing along the surface of the duct
Ducted wind turbines in yawed flow: A numerical study
No full textDucted wind turbines (DWTs) can be used for energy harvesting in urban areas where non-uniform
flows are caused by the presence of buildings or other surface discontinuities. For this reason, the aerodynamic
performance of DWTs in yawed-flow conditions must be characterized depending upon their geometric parameters and operating conditions. A numerical study to investigate the characteristics of flow around two DWT
configurations using a simplified duct-actuator disc (AD) model is carried out. The analysis shows that the aerodynamic performance of a DWT in yawed flow is dependent on the mutual interactions between the duct and
the AD, an interaction that changes with duct geometry. For the two configurations studied, the highly cambered
variant of duct configuration returns a gain in performance by approximately 11 % up to a specific yaw angle
(α = 17.5◦
) when compared to the non-yawed case; thereafter any further increase in yaw angle results in a performance drop. In contrast, performance of less cambered variant duct configuration drops for α > 0
◦
. The gain
in the aerodynamic performance is attributed to the additional camber of the duct that acts as a flow-conditioning
device and delays duct wall flow separation inside of the duct for a broad range of yaw angle
Simulation of the phenological development of wheat and maize at the global scale
No full textTo derive location-specific parameters that reflect the geographic differences among cultivars in vernalization requirements, sensitivity to day length (photoperiod) and temperature, which can be used to simulate the phenological development of wheat and maize at the global scale. Location: Global. Methods: Based on crop calendar observations and literature describing the large-scale patterns of phenological characteristics of cultivars, we developed algorithms to compute location-specific parameters to represent this large-scale pattern. Vernalization requirements were related to the duration and coldness of winter, sensitivity to day length was assumed to be represented by the minimum and maximum day lengths occurring at a location, and sensitivity to temperature was related to temperature conditions during the vegetative development phase of the crop. Results: Application of the derived location-specific parameters resulted in high agreement between simulated and observed lengths of the cropping period. Agreement was especially high for wheat, with mean absolute errors of less than 3 weeks. In the main maize cropping regions, cropping periods were over- and underestimated by 0.5-1.5 months. We also found that interannual variability in simulated wheat harvest dates was more realistic when accounting for photoperiod effects. Main conclusions: The methodology presented here provides a good basis for modelling the phenological characteristics of cultivars at the global scale. We show that current global patterns of growing season length as described in cropping calendars can be largely reproduced by phenology models if location-specific parameters are derived from temperature and day length indicators. Growing seasons can be modelled more accurately for wheat than for maize, especially in warm regions. Our method for computing parameters for phenology models from temperature and day length offers opportunities to improve the simulation of crop productivity by crop simulation models developed for large spatial areas and for long-term climate impact projections that account for adaptation in the selection of varieties
From field to globe: upscaling of crop growth modelling
No full text Recently, the scale of interest for application of crop growth models has extended to the region or even globe with time frames of 50-100 years. The application at larger scales of a crop growth model originally developed for a small scale without any adaptation might lead to errors and inaccuracies. Moreover, application of crop growth models at large scales usually gives problems with respect to missing data. Knowledge about the required level of modelling detail to accurately represent crop growth processes in crop growth models to be applied at large scales is scarce. In this thesis we analysed simulated potential yields, which resulted from models which apply different levels of detail to represent important crop growth processes. Our results indicated that, after location-specific calibration, models in which the same processes were represented with different levels of detail may perform similarly. Model performance was in general best for models which represented leaf area dynamics with the lowest level of detail. Additionally, the results indicated that the use of a different description of light interception significantly changes model outcomes. Especially the representation of leaf senescence was found to be critical for model performance. Global crop growth models are often used with monthly weather data, while crop growth models were originally developed for daily weather data. We examined the effects of replacing daily weather data with monthly data. Results showed that using monthly weather data may result in higher simulated amounts of biomass. In addition, we found increasing detail in a modelling approach to give higher sensitivity to aggregation of input data. Next, we investigated the impact of the use of spatially aggregated sowing dates and temperatures on the simulated phenology of winter wheat in Germany. We found simulated winter wheat phenology in Germany to be rather similar using either non-aggregated input data or aggregated input data with a 100 km × 100 km resolution. Generation or simulation of input data for crop growth models is often necessary if the model is applied at large scales. We simulated sowing dates of several rainfed crops by assuming farmers to sow either when temperature exceeds a crop-specific threshold or at the onset of the wet season. For a large part of the globe our methodology is capable of simulating reasonable sowing dates. To simulate the end of the cropping period (i.e. harvesting dates) we developed simple algorithms to generate unknown crop- and location-specific phenological parameters. In the main cropping regions of wheat the simulated lengths corresponded well with the observations; our methodology worked less well for maize (over- and underestimations of 0.5 to 1.5 month). Importantly, our evaluation of possible consequences for simulated yields related to uncertainties in simulated sowing and harvesting dates showed that simulated yields are rather similar using either simulated or observed sowing and harvesting dates (a maximum difference of 20%), indicating the applicability of our methodology in crop productivity assessments. The thesis concludes with a discussion on a proposed structure of a global crop growth model which is expected to simulate reasonable potential yields at the global scale if only monthly aggregates of climate data at a 0.5° × 0.5° grid are available. The proposed model consists of a forcing function, defined in terms of sigmoidal and quadratic functions to represent light interception, combined with the radiation use efficiency approach, and phenology determining the allocation of biomass to the organs of the crop. Within the model sowing dates and phenological cultivar characteristics are simulated. Based on the proposed model the thesis finally derives directions for future research to further enhance global crop growth modelling. </p
How does the presence of a body affect the performance of an actuator disk ?
No full textThe article seeks to unify the treatment of conservative force interactions between axi-symmetric bodies and actuators in inviscid flow. Applications include the study of hub interference, diffuser augmented wind turbines and boundary layer ingestion propeller configurations. The conservation equations are integrated over infinitesimal streamtubes to obtain an exact momentum model contemplating the interaction between an actuator and a nearby body. No assumptions on the shape or topology of the body are made besides (axi)symmetry. Laws are derived for the thrust coefficient, power coefficient and propulsive efficiency. The proposed methodology is articulated with previous efforts and validated against the numerical predictions of a planar vorticity equation solver. Very good agreement is obtained between the analytical and numerical methods
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