Investigation of the performance of a hybrid wind turbine Darrieus-Savonius

The constantly rising fossil fuels prices and the different agreements between the industrialized countries for carbon dioxide emissions reduction are driving forward the renewable energy sector development. The wind energy systems are one of the most popular, cost-effective systems in comparison with most of the available renewable energy utilizing systems to date. Due to this fact, the interest and investments in wind energy systems are steadily growing through the last decade. The investment in the wind energy sector for the European Union member states is expected to reach 20 billion euro until 2030. The need of sustainable "green" households and the new European legislation regarding that problem are contributing to the integration of the wind energy systems into the urban areas. According to the above-pointed facts the wind energy sector stands as a major point of interest for further study, development and innovation. The adopted main investigation methods regarding the completion of the thesis set of tasks are as follows: creation of a geometrical model (2D and 3D) for all of the turbine’s investigated designs; computational mesh generation – finite volume method; computational solver setup, software used ANSYS Fluent 14.0; conduction of a numerical modelling over the force interaction between an air flow and rotating wind rotor; development of an methodology for experimental investigation of vertical axis wind turbines; manufacturing of an multifunctional test bench for experimental analysis of wind turbines; evaluation of the accuracy of the experimental measurements over the turbine performance - torque, drag force, rotational speed, wind speed etc.