Advanced Wind Energy Technology Research Group Researcher——Abolfazl Abdolahifar

Next-Gen Wind Energy Technologies – Smart Aerodynamics, Digital Twins & Sustainable Innovation

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Abolfazl Abdolahifar

PHD Candidate at Flinders University, Australia

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Aerodynamic Investigation of Darrieus Vertical-Axis Wind Turbines at Startup

Vertical-axis wind turbines (VAWTs) often struggle during the startup phase due to complex aerodynamic behavior. My research focuses on improving our understanding of these flow dynamics to support more effective turbine designs. Building on these insights, we explore practical flow control techniques to enhance startup performance and ensure real-world feasibility.

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My project

Exploring the aerodynamics of Darrieus wind turbines using computational fluid dynamics (CFD) to enhance their efficiency by first gaining a deeper understanding of the complex unsteady flow behavior and then devising advanced flow control techniques.

Exploring the aerodynamics of VAWTs during the startup phase. CFD simulations are conducted in ANSYS Fluent by solving the RANS equations with the SST k-ω turbulence model to capture unsteady flow behavior. At TSR = 0.5 and a wind speed of 6 m/s, the turbine featuring the VAWT-X blade profile demonstrates a 34% increase in average torque compared to well-known blade profiles, indicating enhanced self-starting capability. The simulation uses a computational mesh of 14 million cells. Each turbine revolution requires 48 hours of runtime on 24 cores of a 13th Gen Intel Core i9-13900K system.
Exploring the flow structure around the helical VAWT-X turbine during the startup phase. The unsteady flow features leave their footprints on the pressure distribution over the blade surfaces. This pressure data will be used as input for subsequent structural analysis.