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In Workbench, under Project Schematic, double click Results. This will launch CFD-Post

FIGURE 4

CFD-Post usually opens with an isometric view of the part. Since we're in a 2D analysis, this is not very useful for us. So, the first thing to do is click on the Z axis arrow (bottom-right corner of graphics window) to change the view.

Now insert a Contour. Click on the Contour icon (or Insert > Contour)

FIGURE 5

Name it "Velocity contour". A new box will appear on the left side of the screen. Summary of what to do:

Domains: leave default ("All Domains")

Locations: click on the three dots "..." on the side. select all names with "symmetry 1" in it. Hold the Ctrl key for that. You will select 5 zones in total, see figure.

FIGURE 6

Variable: change is to "Velocity".

Range: leave as "Global".

# of Contours: change to around 51.

Click Apply.

You can zoom into the bug, drawing a box with the right mouse button.

FIGURE 7

Note that it's very clear the effect of when the blade is perpendicular to the flow: a huge recirculation bubble is made. This will negatively affect other turbines placed downstream of this one. This is a very important thing to consider when designing an array of VAWTs.

This is a single snapshot of the spinning of the turbine, or a particular position. A transient analysis with a complete animation will be created in the future.

You can also zoom out and see that far downstream of the turbine, the flow has not yet recover its freestream condition. If you probe the velocity inside that slightly brighter area you will see that the velocity is around 9m/s (instead of 10m/s of the freestream).

To probe: Click on "Probe" icon. Then change the variable to "Velocity" and click on the screen where you wanna probe.

FIGURE 8 

Check mass flow

Velocity contours

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