Nonlinear Lifting Line Theory Applied to Vertical Axis Wind Turbines: Development of a Practical Design Tool

Recently a new interest in vertical axis wind turbine (VAWT) technology is fueled by research on floating support structures for large scale offshore wind energy application. For the application on floating structures at multi megawatt size, the VAWT concept may offer distinct advantages over the conventional horizontal axis wind turbine (HAWT) design. As an example VAWT turbines are better suited for upscaling and, at multi megawatt size, the problem of periodic fatigue cycles reduces significantly due to a very low rotational speed. Additionally, the possibility to store the transmission and electricity generation system at the bottom, compared to the tower top as in a HAWT, can lead to a considerable reduction of material logistics costs. However, as most VAWT research stalled in the mid 90’s, no established and sophisticated tools to investigate this concept further exist today. Due to the complex interaction between unsteady aerodynamics and movement of the floating structure fully coupled simulation tools, modelling both aero and structural dynamics are needed. A nonlinear Lifting Line Free Vortex Wake code was recently integrated into the open source wind turbine simulation suite QBlade. This paper describes some of the necessary adaptations of the algorithm, which differentiates it from the usual application in HAWT simulations. A focus is set on achieving a high robustness and computational efficiency. A short validation study compares simulation results with those of a U-RANS and a Double Multiple Streamtube (DMS) simulation.