Interaction of closely-spaced vertical-axis wind turbines

Vertical-axis wind turbines, when placed close together, have an improved power production and very interesting aerodynamics. The experimental side of this project is the PhD project of Antoine Vergaerde. The computational side of the project is taken care of by Greeshma Boohalli Shivamallegowda. Both Antoine and Greeshma are supervised by Tim De Troyer and myself.

Although the viability of vertical-axis wind turbines for the production of electricity is still open for debate, they may have certain niche applications, and definitely have very interesting aerodynamics.

We built our own set of scales models, shown above during a wind tunnel test run at PoliMi in Italy.