Investigation of Blade Tip Shape for Improving VAWT Performance

Vertical axis wind turbine (VAWT) is a competitive power generation device due to structural simplicity, wind direction independence, no yaw mechanism required, easier maintenance, and lower noise emission. However, blade tip vortex will be generated at both ends of the blade during the rotation, resulting in torque loss and efficiency reduction. In this paper, computational fluid dynamics is used to study blade tip vortex and its reduction technique of a single-blade VAWT rotor in real scale. By monitoring the force and flow field at different heights of the blade, the influence ranges of tip vortex are obtained. The reduction effect of the bulkhead obtained from the blade profile curve is studied, and the size of the bulkhead is optimized. On the basis of adding the optimal bulkhead, the influence of the supporting strut is also explored. The joint action is obtained by changing the location of the supporting strut. The results show that the top supporting strut-bulkhead structure is the optimal position. The power-extraction efficiency of the rotor with this integrated structure is significantly improved at optimal tip speed ratios (TSRs) and higher TSRs.