Graduation Semester and Year

2010

Language

English

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Science in Aerospace Engineering

Department

Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering

First Advisor

Brian Dennis

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to introduce and demonstrate a fully automated process for optimizing the airfoil cross-section of a vertical axis wind turbine (VAWT). The objective is to maximize the torque while enforcing typical wind turbine design constraints such as tip speed ratio, solidity, and blade profile. By fixing the tip speed ratio and solidity of the wind turbine, there exists an airfoil cross-section for which the torque can be maximized, requiring the development of an iterative design system.The design system required to maximize torque incorporates rapid geometry generation and automated hybrid mesh generation tools with viscous, unsteady computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulation software. The flexibility and automation of the modular design and simulation system allows for it to easily be coupled with a parallel differential evolution algorithm used to obtain an optimized blade design that maximizes the efficiency of the wind turbine.

Disciplines

Aerospace Engineering | Engineering | Mechanical Engineering

Comments

Degree granted by The University of Texas at Arlington

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