By Austin Moore

Faculty Mentor: Desmond Villalba

Abstract

As the demand for sustainable energy sources grows, significant efforts are directed toward optimizing existing renewable energy technologies. This goal forms the foundation of my research, the focus of which is to study the design of geometric wind tunnels and the arrangement of various shapes to enhance wind turbine energy production. The power produced by a wind turbine is proportional to the wind speed cubed. Using OpenFOAM, a computational fluid dynamics software, I was able to simulate incompressible, steady-state air flow. In certain geometric configurations, I found up to a 40% increase over the ambient wind speed. By examining how these different configurations affect air speeds, this research aims to contribute to the development of more efficient wind farm designs.