Study of the influence of airfoils geometry in the yield of wind turbines using computational fluid dynamics (CFD)

This thesis aims to analyze the importance of airfoils geometry in the yield of wind turbines using computational fluid dynamics (CFD) approach. It pretends to interpret the most important aerodynamic design features of the rotor, and aerodynamic parameters associated with blades airfoils geometry, related with the improvement of wind turbines efficiency for vertical and horizontal axis generators. Moreover the project pretends to explain basic concepts of wind energy converters of both generators named before, and the physical principles of wind energy conversion. All this study will be proven using some specific cases of airfoil shapes for aircraft wings standardized by the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA)1. These different shapes will be simulated through CFD changing the mainly influent variables. The numerical simulation of the flow field around the blades will be conducted with ANSYS® Fluent Software2. Finally, the conclusions obtained by the simulation will be compared with the physical explanation demonstrated before, thus obtaining information about how to optimize the airfoil shape.Outgoin