Date of Award

8-2012

Degree Name

Master of Science in Engineering

Department

Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering

First Advisor

Dr. William W. Liou

Keywords

Aerodynamics, CFD, wind power, FLUENT, oscillating airfoils

Access Setting

Masters Thesis-Open Access

Abstract

An analysis of a newly proposed wind power extraction device called a wing oscillator was performed using computational fluid dynamics (CFD). A wing oscillator is a device that consists of two airfoils attached to a central pivot by means of a frame or shaft. Oscillatory motion is produced by controlling the angle of attack of the airfoils as a fluid flow is passed over the device. A robust mathematical scheme was developed to investigate the performance of the wing oscillator and was hooked to the CFD software package FLUENT through User Defined Functions (UDFs). Using the dynamic meshing analysis methods available in FLUENT in conjunction with the developed mathematical scheme, a time accurate dynamic analysis of the wing oscillator was performed. Post processing of the various analyses was completed using the built in FLUENT post processing functions as well as reading the solution output data into a custom MATLAB code. A parametric study was performed using a combination of different system variables such as maximum system angle, airfoil angle of attack, and spring constant. The aerodynamic characteristics of the various cases were analyzed and the system performance was compared to analyze the effect of the individual parameters.

Download

Share

COinS