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Rooftop Siting of a Small Wind Turbine Using a Hybrid BEM-CFD Model

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Wind Energy Exploitation in Urban Environment (TUrbWind 2017)

Part of the book series: Green Energy and Technology ((GREEN))

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Abstract

The benefits of wind turbine rooftop installations are related to the exploitation both of a higher elevation within the atmospheric boundary layer and of possible local accelerated flows originated by the interaction between the wind and the surrounding landscape. The selection of the proper turbine positioning is however pivotal to ensure maximized energy yields. Although the complete solution of the flow field surrounding the rotors would lead to most accurate results, lower-fidelity models with a more affordable computational cost are still about to be preferable for multivariate optimization analyses. In this study, a set of simulations using a hybrid BEM-CFD model were carried out to optimize the siting of a small HAWT in the rooftop of a suburban building. The parametric study on the urban landscape and the turbine positioning showed that the proposed approach hybrid approach provides interesting prospects in view of more energy-efficient urban installations of wind turbines.

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Abbreviations

ABL:

Atmospheric Boundary Layer

ADM:

Actuator Disk Model

BEM:

Blade Element Momentum

CFD:

Computational Fluid Dynamics

C µ :

Turbulence model constant

C p :

Power coefficient

C s :

Roughness constant

d :

Displacement (m)

D :

Distance between UB and IB (m)

h :

UB height (m)

H :

IB height (m)

Ĥ :

Mean buildings height (m)

HAWT:

Horizontal Axis Wind Turbine

K s :

Sand-grain roughness (m)

k :

Turbulent kinetic energy (m2/s2)

IB:

Installation Building

L :

Buildings width (m)

P :

Turbine power (W)

R :

Turbine radius (m)

R 2 :

Coefficient of determination

RANS:

Reynolds-Averaged Navier-Stokes

TSR:

Tip-Speed Ratio

UB:

Upwind Building

u* :

Friction velocity (m/s)

V :

Flow velocity (m/s)

VAWT:

Vertical Axis Wind Turbine

VBM:

Virtual Blade Model

y p :

Height of the ground cells centroid (m)

z 0 :

Roughness length (m)

γ :

Skew angle (deg)

ε :

Turbulent kinetic energy dissipation rate (m2/s3)

κ :

Von Karman constant

ω :

Specific turbulence dissipation rate (s−1)

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Acknowledgements

The activity presented in the paper is part of the research grant assigned to Dr. Francesco Balduzzi by the Fondazione Cassa di Risparmio di Firenze, which is sincerely acknowledged for its invaluable effort is sustaining the university research. Thanks are due to Prof. Ennio Antonio Carnevale of the University of Florence for supporting this activity.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Industrial Engineering (DIEF), Università degli Studi di Firenze, Via di Santa Marta 3, 50139, Florence, Italy

    F. Balduzzi, A. Bianchini, D. Gentiluomo & G. Ferrara

  2. Department of Energy, Systems, Territory and Construction Engineering (DESTEC), University of Pisa, Largo Lucio Lazzarino, 56122, Pisa, Italy

    L. Ferrari

Authors
  1. F. Balduzzi
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  2. A. Bianchini
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  3. D. Gentiluomo
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  4. G. Ferrara
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  5. L. Ferrari
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to F. Balduzzi .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. University of Trento, Trento, Italy

    Lorenzo Battisti

  2. University of Trento , Trento, Italy

    Mosè Ricci

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Balduzzi, F., Bianchini, A., Gentiluomo, D., Ferrara, G., Ferrari, L. (2018). Rooftop Siting of a Small Wind Turbine Using a Hybrid BEM-CFD Model. In: Battisti, L., Ricci, M. (eds) Wind Energy Exploitation in Urban Environment. TUrbWind 2017. Green Energy and Technology. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-74944-0_7

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-74944-0_7

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  • Online ISBN: 978-3-319-74944-0

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