Diffuser-Augmented Composite Material Wind Turbine Design Using CFD

A novel manufacturing approach similar to filament winding is able to produce high-performance and light-weight composite wheels in a rapid, inexpensive way by utilizing commercially available winding machines. In this study, a numerical investigation of a diffuser-augmented composite wind turbine is evaluated with a conventional bare wind turbine by using FLUENT in conjunction with the GAMBIT meshing tool. The extracted torque and power are calculated and compared for these two modeling designs. The simulation results show that the extracted power of a diffuser-augmented turbine can be 5 times the power extracted by a bare turbine of the same turbine area. This analysis procedure provides an insight into the hydrodynamic design and operation of a diffuser-augmented wind turbine in order to shorten the design period and improve technical performance.