Modeling Wind Turbines and Vortices Using PyOpenGL and PyGame

Charles Tierney, MA198/CS199 Hypergraphics, 2015

Abstract

Recent investigations of the power output of wind turbines have found that the addition of winglets to the tips of turbine blades can increase the power output of the turbine. This effect is largely achieved by the reduction of tip loss effect and the translation of wing tip vortices away from the turbine blade.

This project aims to model wind turbines with winglets and the vortices that occur at the tips of the turbine blades. Using the graphics module VPython, these wind turbines and vortices can be modeled at variable flow rates (wind speeds).

Figure 1: Screen capture of the finished "forces.py" script

Figure 2: Screen capture of the finished "vpython_turbine.py" script

Final Presentation

Narrative PDF and Powerpoint Slides

More Information

Below are links to find more information on the project. "Supplemental Materials" includes all files related to the project, and "Weekly Updates" provides updates at various points in the project creation phase