CFD modeling of artificial vortex air generator for green electric power

This paper presents and discusses a Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) simulation of artificial vortex air generator as part of the preliminary of Solar Vortex Power Generator for an electrical power generation. A vortex air generator system was built, consisting of concentric cylinders. The inner cylinder was fitted with stationary air guide vanes and covered at the top by a transparent plate to capture the solar radiation and create swirling updraft flow which is able to rotate wind turbine and produces power. The influence of inlet air velocity and temperature on the swirling strength and mass flow generated has been evaluated by validated CFD simulation. ANSYS Fluent software was adopted to solve the 3-D, steady state of Navier-Stokes and energy equations in cylindrical coordinate system integrated with discrete ordinates (DO) radiation model. For the preliminary vortex generator design, the CFD results were validated first with previous experimental measurements. Then the variable operation parameters were carried out on the proposed model. The simulation result demonstrated that inflow velocity is a key parameter for enhancing the system performance. By increasing the inflow velocity from 0.4 m/s to 0.6 m/s and inflow temperature 323°k the enhancement rate of the mass air flow generated reached to 26 compared with 7 when increase the inflow temperature to 328°k and inflow velocity 0.4 m/s. © The authors, published by EDP Sciences, 2017.