Thambidurai Arasi, Tarun RamprakashShubham, ShubhamIanakiev, Anton2024-06-062024-06-062024-01-04Thambidurai Arasi TR, Shubham S, Ianakiev A. (2024) Effect of blade shape on aerodynamic and aeroacoustic characteristics of vertical axis wind turbines using mid-fidelity and high-fidelity methods. In: AIAA SCITECH 2024 Forum, 8-12 January 2024, Orlando, USA, Paper number AIAA 2024-1488978-1-62410-711-5https://doi.org/10.2514/6.2024-1488https://dspace.lib.cranfield.ac.uk/handle/1826/21982This research paper investigates the effect of different blade shapes on the aerodynamic and aeroacoustic characteristics of Darrieus Vertical Axis Wind Turbines (VAWTs). Three different VAWT blade shapes are investigated: Straight, Troposkein, and Helical, considering a chord-based Reynolds number of 1.73e+5 and at a constant tip speed ratio for all. The mid-fidelity Lifting Line Free Vortex Wake (LLFVW) method and the high-fidelity Lattice Boltzmann/Very Large Eddy Simulation (LB-VLES) method are employed. Power performance analysis reveals that the straight-bladed VAWT generates the highest power output (about 11% higher), followed by the helical and troposkein blade configurations. The helical-bladed rotor exhibits smoother thrust and torque distribution over a wider azimuthal angle range, as predicted by both methods. While both methods capture the same trends in thrust and torque values, the mid-fidelity LLFVW method predicts approximately 22% higher thrust and torque values and lower near-wake streamwise velocities as compared to the high-fidelity LBM. The LLFVW is unable to accurately capture the inherent 3D vortices in the VAWT flow-field and the effect of blade-vortex interaction (BVI) on the VAWT force-field, as compared to LBM. In terms of aeroacoustics, the troposkein VAWT produces the highest noise at lower frequencies (20-30 Hz), followed by the straight and helical VAWTs. However, the troposkein and helical VAWTs emit more noise at higher frequencies (500-2000 Hz) than the straight VAWT due to the higher intensity of BVI observed for the former.en-UKAttribution 4.0 Internationalhttp://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Horizontal Axis Wind TurbineLattice Boltzmann MethodsVortex StructureAerodynamic SimulationBlade Vortex InteractionCourant Friedrichs LewyReynolds Averaged Navier StokesSound Pressure LevelAerodynamic PerformanceBlade LoadingConference paper