Performance improvement for Bach-type vertical-axis wind turbines in dynamic highway airflow environments

Highways possess significant wind energy potential from traffic-induced dynamic airflow, yet this resource remains largely untapped. While substantial progress has been made in optimizing Vertical-Axis Wind Turbines (VAWT), existing research has overlooked Bach-type (B-type) VAWT in highway environments. The unique characteristics of highway airflow, including unsteady velocity fluctuations and complex crosswind conditions, present persistent challenges that current turbine designs are not fully equipped to address. This study addresses this gap by employing Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) to analyze the aerodynamic performance of B-type VAWT in highway environments and assess their potential for wind energy recovery. Through numerical simulations and performance validation, a B-type VAWT with key parameters, including the blade profile, height, and number, was designed, and its three-dimensional CFD model was validated. The results show that the optimized 2-blade B-type VAWT achieves a maximum power coefficient (Cp) of 0.265 at an optimal tip speed ratio (TSR) of 1.0 and a blade height of 2.5 m under steady inflow conditions, outperforming the conventional Savonius-type turbine by up to 18.68%. Under combined sinusoidal and crosswind conditions, the 2-blade B-type VAWT reaches a maximum Cp of 0.374 at an optimal TSR of 1.1 and a blade height of 2.5 m, with an 8.45% efficiency improvement under sinusoidal wind alone. These findings confirm the superior efficiency of the B-type VAWT in capturing energy from complex highway wind environments, demonstrating its feasibility for practical deployment in such dynamic flow fields.