Highway mounted horizontal axial flow turbines for wind energy harvesting from cruising vehicles

Abstract

Renewable energy technologies are a growing subject of concern these days. Wind energy is one among the renewable energy sources which has been implemented in a large scale for energy production. A large amount of capital has been invested in this field to harness energy and power homes. Wind energy from highways is usually unused and can provide a considerable amount of wind energy to drive a turbine due to high vehicle traffic and the speed of the vehicles. Extensive research on wind patterns is required to determine the average velocity of the wind created by oncoming vehicles. The objective of this work is to design and analyze a horizontal axis wind turbine to capture wind energy from moving vehicles on the highway. A computational fluid dynamics approach is used to solve this problem. The major innovation in this paper is that wind energy is being harvested in a very unique manner and also turbine power calculations have been done to quantify the amount of energy being harvested. Although a few of the literatures have discussed similar ideas power quantification has never been done. Also the entire mechanism has been simulated in MATLAB to find out the number of cars required to charge a battery which is very unique to this paper. Power calculations have been done for the turbine and validated against theoretical calculations which were done using the concept of velocity triangles. The idea is to have a separate mounting for cars and heavy vehicles which can be realized by having separate lanes on highways. The analysis will be done for vehicles moving in a range of speeds on the highway. The wind turbines will be placed on overhead shafts (the height of which is be determined suitably) thereby capturing the wind generated as a result of pressure difference. The mounts can also be used as signboards for vehicles moving on the highway and hence serve a dual purpose. In addition, extensive structural and fatigue analysis will be done for the turbines and the mounting structures in order to determine a suitable material for the turbine as well as the mounts to withstand the forces generated. Using all of the collected energy, existing amenities such as street lights on the medians can be powered by these wind turbines. Thus the main objective of this work is to complement the conventional electrical energy used for powering amenities along highways by a renewable source of energy (wind power) thereby leading to the concept of sustainable highways. Copyright � 2016 by ASME.