Numerical Analysis of the Kline and Fogleman Airfoil's Effect on the Operation of Straight Darrieus Wind Turbine

The blade profile selection is paramount for the efficient operation of straight Darrieus wind turbines in terms of torque and power generation. In this work, we have used the Kline-Fogleman Airfoil (KFA) design for the wind turbine blades. The concept of KFA design aims to cause flow separation, vortex formation, and reattachment establishment before the trailing edge. Thus, geometric tests on have been performed on the baseline airfoil NACA0015 as one of the best profiles for operating a straight Darrius wind turbine. A two-dimensional Computational Fluid Dynamic (CFD) model using the two-equation Shear Stress Transport k-ω (SST k-ω) turbulent model was developed in ANSYS/FLUENT software to assess the aerodynamic efficiency of the modified airfoil. Two designs (KFA-2 and KFA-4) were tested initially in the static case. The effects of the opening step angle and its curvature diameter were studied for an angle of attack’s range of -20° to +20°. The rounded KFA-4 design with an opening step angle of 93.6° led to a significant improvement in the lift-to-drag ratio thus, aerodynamic efficiency. Finally, the straight KFA-4 design with the opening step angle of 93.6° revealed a the most advantageous effects on the operation of a straight Darrieus wind turbine for a Tip Speed Ratio less than 1.6 (TSR<1.6). It allowed a noticeable reduction of the dead zone and TSR corresponding to the nominal power, thus consequently improving the starting torque and delaying torque stall.