| Summary: | The purpose of this thesis is the research of the aerodynamic behaviour of a three bladed Darrieus vertical axis wind turbine (VAWT). The aerodynamic simulations were conducted in OpenFOAM software, using PIMPLE as the solver. The operation of the wind turbine was simulated using Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) and the Finite Volume Method (FVM). A volume mesh was created having the necessary density to properly resolve the boundary layer flow phenomena. Turbulence was modeled using the k-omega SST RANS Model, which accurately predicts flow separation at the various airfoils along the blade. Τhe contours for velocity, pressure and eddy viscosity were plotted at different times with different wind velocity and the changes of these quantities were recorded. In the end characteristic quantities such as the swept area, the torque and the efficiency of the wind turbine were calculated.
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