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REVIEW article

Front. Energy Res.
Sec. Wind Energy
Volume 12 - 2024 | doi: 10.3389/fenrg.2024.1437800
This article is part of the Research Topic Advances in Wind Turbine Rotor Design View all 7 articles

Variable Designs of Vertical Axis Wind Turbines -A Review

Provisionally accepted
Ken-Yeen Lee Ken-Yeen Lee 1Andrew Cruden Andrew Cruden 2Jo-Han Ng Jo-Han Ng 1Kok-Hoe Wong Kok-Hoe Wong 1*
  • 1 University of Southampton Malaysia, Iskandar Puteri, Malaysia
  • 2 University of Southampton, Southampton, Hampshire, United Kingdom

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

    Omnidirectionality and simple design make VAWTs more attractive compared to HAWTs in highly turbulent and harsh operational environments including low wind speed conditions where this technology shines more. However, the performance of VAWTs is lacking compared to HAWTs due to low turbine efficiency at downstream caused by large wake vortices generated by advancing blades in the upstream position. Introducing variable design methods on VAWT provides better adaptability to the various oncoming wind conditions. This paper presents state-of-the-art variable methods for performance enhancement of VAWTs to provide better direction for the wind industry. The variable VAWT design can increase the lift and torque, especially at the downstream regions by managing the blade-to-wake interaction and blade angle-of attack (AoA) well, hence contributing to the performance enhancement of VAWTs. In addition, the self-starting capabilities have also been found to improve by employing variable methods with a better angle of attack on the turbine blades. Nevertheless, the complexity of varying mechanisms and structural rigidity are the main challenges in adopting this idea. Yet, it possesses great potential to develop higher-efficiency VAWT systems that can operate in a wide range of wind speeds.

    Keywords: VAWT, Variable design, Coefficient of power, Darrieus turbine, Savonius turbine

    Received: 24 May 2024; Accepted: 04 Jul 2024.

    Copyright: © 2024 Lee, Cruden, Ng and Wong. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

    * Correspondence: Kok-Hoe Wong, University of Southampton Malaysia, Iskandar Puteri, Malaysia

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