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Consider an uniform flow of V = 10m/s passing through a Vertical Axis Wind Turbine (VAWT) as sketched above. The VAWT has a diameter of 12cm and 3 equally spaced blades, each one with a chord length of 2cm. For simplification, consider that it spins with a constant angular velocity of 40 RPM*. The center of each blade is located 0.04m from the center of the hub.

You may use the following simplifications:

• Assume the airfoils are flat plates of 0.1x2cm, positioned on a pitch angle of 20deg, i.e. the plates are placed such that when they are at the upper-most part its trajectory, they form an angle of 20deg with the horizontal.
• Incoming flow with a constant profile of 10m/s
• The downstream pressure is 101325 Pa.
• Air with density of 1.225kg/m3 and viscosity of 1.7894e-5 Pa.s. 
• 2D analysis

Note that this is a Darrieus VAWT, which is Lift based, in contrast to the Savonius VAWT, which is Drag based. This is an intensive field of research, and at Cornell we have the Fluid Dynamics Research Laboratory, directed by Prof. Charles Williamson. In the last section we will compare results with the experimental data obtain by the lab.

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