Numerical design and modelling of a vertical axis wind turbine to extract wind energy from highways to power electric vehicle charging stations.

The conventional sources of energy are exhausting. Considering this fact, the Government is firmly set on making India a primarily electric car driven nation by 2030 to reduce the petroleum import bills and the running costs of vehicles. Thus, the automobile sector is going to be dependent on the power grids and on the power transmission firms. The sudden increase in electricity requirement would put extra load on the power supply chain which completely depend on the depleting natural resources such as coal and nuclear power plants. Thus, there is a need of an alternative electricity generation technique for the Electric Vehicle charging infrastructure in the country. Our approach of solving this problem is by installing an array of vertical axis wind turbines [VAWT] in the existing infrastructure of the cities such as bridges, flyovers, highways etc. For the implementation of the wind turbines in cities on a large scale VAWTs have considerable advantages over the conventional wind turbines (horizontal axis), as these cover a less rotational area and being easy to install and maintain. Also, vertical axis turbines are more efficient in cities as there is not a constant flow direction. The goal of this project is to design and fabricate a model of a VAWT, along with an array of the same which would be efficient and viable for application on a large scale. The design process involves analyzing the various parameters affecting the working and efficiency of a vertical axis wind turbine using computational fluid dynamics and verifying the analysis through a working model. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]