Preliminary Study of Airflow Energy Recovery System for Electric Vehicles: Performance of VAWT with Air Duct

In order to increase the driving range of electric vehicles, a lift-drag hybrid vertical axis wind turbine (VAWT) and an air duct were designed in this paper, which could realize the wind energy recovering. The energy conversion theory of the concentrated wind energy was introduced into the design of air duct. The wind speed would be increased by 30% after concentrated by the air duct which was verified through CFX simulation. The simulation of original vehicle model, wind turbine and air duct were carried out respectively in Ansys Workbench. And after adding the wind energy recovery device, the drag resistance coefficient of the electric vehicle is reduced by about 8.84%. Indoor laboratory tests conducted on a scale-up model show the flow fields inside the air duct and the turbine rotational speeds in different wind conditions. Results show that position 3 is the optimal matching position of wind turbine and air duct where the cut-in speed is about 4.78km/h and the maximum rotational speed of wind turbine is 458rpm.