Computational fluid dynamics study of airborne wind turbine

• Main Author: Wong, Jian Hao
• Other Authors: Wu Yanhua
• Format: Final Year Project
• Language: English
• Published: 2015
• Subjects: DRNTU::Engineering::Mechanical engineering
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/10356/65094
• Institution: Nanyang Technological University

Renewable energy has been put with great potential as an alternative to nonrenewable fossil fuel as the primary source of energy for human beings. Some developed countries like United States sees renewable energy as their key components of the nation’s security. The surge of wind power development has crowned it as one of the fastest emerging alternative energy around the globe. High-altitude wind power, however, possess some great advantages over terrestrial wind turbine has grabbed attention of researchers and scientists in the past few years. In view of the fast growing wind energy industry, the purpose of this project is to design an airborne wind turbine by using Magnus effect and study the performance of this wind turbine. This report gives a brief overview of the background of high-altitude wind power, types of airborne wind turbines, and software used in this project. This report then proceeds to design the airborne wind turbine which includes the design parameter and working principle of the wind turbine. Existing airborne wind turbine with Magnus effect as the working principle is used as the reference of design with additional feature to enhance the performance of the whole wind turbine. Simulation is conducted to determine the output performance. Analyses of simulation data were conducted for the steady and transient state. Recommendations for future design and improvement of simulation result will also be discussed in this report. The design parameters and simulation progress of this project are clearly documented in this report as reference for any future relevant studies.