Small-scale vertical-axis wind turbines can be used as a source of electricity in rural and urban environments. According to the authors’ knowledge, there are no validated simplified aerodynamic models of these wind turbines, therefore the use of more advanced techniques, such as for example the computational methods for fluid dynamics is justified. The paper contains performance analysis of the small-scale vertical-axis wind turbine with a large solidity. The averaged velocity field and the averaged static pressure distribution around the rotor have been also analyzed. All numerical results presented in this paper are obtained using the SST k-ω turbulence model. Computed power coefficients are in good agreement with the experimental results. A small change in the tip speed ratio significantly affects the velocity field. Obtained velocity fields can be further used as a base for simplified aerodynamic methods.

The central theme of this work was to analyze high aspect ratio structure having structural nonlinearity in low subsonic flow and to model nonlinear stiffness by finite element-modal approach. Total stiffness of high aspect ratio wing can be decomposed to linear and nonlinear stiffnesses. Linear stiffness is modeled by its eigenvalues and eigenvectors, while nonlinear stiffness is calculated by the method of combined Finite Element-Modal approach. The nonlinear modal stiffness is calculated by defining nonlinear static load cases first. The nonlinear stiffness in the present work is modeled in two ways, i.e., based on bending modes only and based on bending and torsion modes both. Doublet lattice method (DLM) is used for dynamic analysis which accounts for the dependency of aerodynamic forces and moments on the frequency content of dynamic motion. Minimum state rational fraction approximation (RFA) of the aerodynamic influence coefficient (AIC) matrix is used to formulate full aeroelastic state-space time domain equation. Time domain dynamics analyses show that structure behavior becomes exponentially growing at speed above the flutter speed when linear stiffness is considered, however, Limit Cycle Oscillations (LCO) is observed when linear stiffness along with nonlinear stiffness, modeled by FE-Modal approach is considered. The amplitude of LCO increases with the increase in the speed. This method is based on cantilevered configuration. Nonlinear static tests are generated while wing root chord is fixed in all degrees of freedom and it needs modification if one requires considering full aircraft. It uses dedicated commercial finite element package in conjunction with commercial aeroelastic package making the method very attractive for quick nonlinear aeroelastic analysis. It is the extension of M.Y. Harmin and J.E. Cooper method in which they used the same equations of motion and modeled geometrical nonlinearity in bending modes only. In the current work, geometrical nonlinearities in bending and in torsion modes have been considered.

Promising cooling systems for high-power electronic elements are those based on vapor chambers and heat pipes which allow for the local heat flow to be dispersed from the electronic element to a larger surface area of the vapor chamber or the heat pipe. To reduce the thermal resistance of the cooling system, a finned radiator is installed on the outer surface of the vapor chamber or heat pipe. The authors propose a new design of the radiator which increases the heat transfer efficiency. The paper presents results of numerical simulation of heat transfer and aerodynamic resistance of the heat transfer surface with lamellar-split finning. The comparative analysis of heat transfer and aerodynamics was carried out for three types of radiators: with lamellar smooth finning, with lamellar split finning and with the sections of split finning rotated 30◦ against the air flow. It is shown that cutting the fins and rotating the split sections leads to an increase in heat transfer intensity and increase in aerodynamic resistance. The obtained results may be useful in the design of cooling systems for computer processors, power amplifiers for transmitting modules, energy-saving solid-state light sources, etc.

Types of wind storms in Poland and examples of economic damage, threats to human life and health caused by two extreme wind events are presented. Then, a house with the roof blown-off during the derecho wind storm in Poland on August 11-12, 2017, is considered. Based on the rafter framing of the house, i.e. wooden roof structure elements and roof covered, the weight of the roof is calculated. Two cases of the strong connection between rafter plates and knee walls are estimated. With the estimation of connection strength between rafter plates and knee walls, it was possible to calculate the total force required to blow-off the roof of the house. Next, an aerodynamic force acting on the house is calculated using pressure coefficients for a low-rise house with a gable roof. The pressure coefficients were taken from the Tokyo Polytechnic University aerodynamic database. The aerodynamic force acting on the roof blown-off was calculated for a low-rise building with a gable roof for similar ratios for length, width, and height. Three wind directions, for the unknown orientation of the building, were considered, i.e. the wind direction perpendicular, parallel, and oblique to the gable wall. By comparison, the aerodynamic force with the total force required to blow-off the roof of the house, it was possible to calculate the critical wind speed needed for the roof blown-off. This wind speed is much bigger than measured by meteorological stations on the path of the derecho.

A hybrid artificial boundary condition (HABC) that combines the volume-based acoustic damping layer (ADL) and the local face-based characteristic boundary condition (CBC) is presented to enhance the absorption of acoustic waves near the computational boundaries. This method is applied to the prediction of aerodynamic noise from a circular cylinder immersed in uniform compressible viscous flow. Different ADLs are designed to assess their effectiveness whereby the effect of the mesh-stretch direction on wave absorption in the ADL is analysed. Large eddy simulation (LES) and FW-H acoustic analogy method are implemented to predict the far-field noise, and the sensitivities of each approach to the HABC are compared. In the LES computed propagation field of the fluctuation pressure and the frequency-domain results, the spurious reflections at edges are found to be significantly eliminated by the HABC through the effective dissipation of incident waves along the wave-front direction in the ADL. Thereby, the LES results are found to be in a good agreement with the acoustic pressure predicted using FW-H method, which is observed to be just affected slightly by reflected waves.