Vertical axis wind turbines (VAWT) are operational regardless to wind direction, eliminating the need to orient them towards the wind. Despite their many advantages, they have yet to find widespread commercial application.
For her Master’s thesis, Sina Shamsoddin developed two VAWT simulation models, which she coupled with a numerical atmospheric simulation model to study the interaction between the atmospheric flow and the wind turbines.
In the first VAWT model, the time averaged turbine-induced forces are distributed on a surface swept by the turbine blades. The second one distributes the forces spatially on lines that represent the blades. This second approach, used for the first time on VAWTs, was found to show closer agreement to the measured data.