Paper Conference

Proceedings of uSim Conference 2022: 3rd uSim Conference of IBPSA-Scotland

     

A NUMERICAL CFD STUDY ON THE INTEGRATION AND PERFORMANCE ENHANCEMENT OF OSCILLATING AEROFOIL WIND ENERGY CONVERTERS INTO BUILDINGS

Katrina Calautit, Cameron Johnstone

Abstract: This study investigated the wind characteristics such as areas of separation, stagnation point, concentration, and wind acceleration on different roof structures with the proposed wind energy harvesting technology using the computational fluid dynamics tool in ANSYS Fluent. The six degrees of freedom solver was used to develop a model for predicting the urban wind flow over and around the oscillating aerofoil building roof structure. Moreover, the research evaluated the impact of different parameters that affect the performance of oscillating aerofoil harvesting technologies in building roof structures. These include the effects of roof shape, placement, airflow distribution, accelerated wind velocity magnitude, and wind direction, which optimizes the potential of the oscillating aerofoil integrated into the building roof structure for harvesting energy. Two different roof shapes were examined, including the flat and pitched roofs with two various placement locations of the aerofoil. The results showed that the integration of an oscillating aerofoil into the top middle the of pitched roof installed at a distance of 600 mm from the roof surface showed higher power extraction compared to the other three models examined. This results from the acceleration of wind flow over the roof surfaces and the right placement of the aerofoil into the building roof structure. Whilst poor performance was observed for the oscillating aerofoil installed at a flat roof structure with a distance of 600 mm from the roof surface. This was due to the large recirculation areas above the flat roof, which did not provide a suitable airflow condition for the energy harvester.
Paper:
usim2022_p102