Can bird, cetacean, and insect inspired techniques improve the aerodynamic performance of DU 06 W 200 airfoil applied in vertical axis wind turbines?

To achieve a better aerodynamic performance of wind turbines, the selection of a proper airfoil plays a crucial role. Generally, aviation airfoils (such as the NACA series) were widely used in the design of wind turbine blades due to their aerodynamic characteristics. However, several studies have shown that there are a number of defects in the application of aviation airfoils for blade design, such as poor stall characteristics or incompatible performance at different Reynolds numbers. The aerodynamic performance and lift force of newly developed airfoils inspired by cetaceans, birds, and insects were numerically investigated by CFD in the range of Reynolds number of 1.2 × 105 to 1.7 × 105 and a range of angles of attack (from 0° to 25°). ANSYS Fluent and the Shear Stress Transport (SST) k-ω turbulence models were selected to analyse the pressure and velocity distributions around the airfoils. In addition, the aerodynamic efficiency was calculated for all different cases. For verification and comparison, DU 06-W-200 airfoil was also simulated under the same operating conditions. Results revealed that several of these new bio-inspired designs can increase the aerodynamic performance of the DU 06-W-200 airfoil by up to 24.7%, with the bird-inspired airfoils presenting the best performance among all designs, and the best options for the design of vertical axis wind turbine (VAWT) blades.