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Search indexed NASA NTRS and DOE OSTI research on propulsion, heat transfer, battery materials and energy systems. Follow report and document links to the original sources.

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DOE OSTI2025

Aeroelastic Validation of the Sandia Offshore Wind Energy Simulator (OWENS) for Vertical-Axis Wind Turbines

Vertical-axis wind turbines (VAWTs) have been the subject of research and development for nearly a century. However, this turbine architecture has fallen in and out of favor on multiple occasions. Beginning in the late 1970s, the U.S. Department of Energy sponsored an extensive experimental program through Sandia National Laboratories which produced a mass of experimental data from several highly instrumented turbines. Turbines designed, built, and tested include the 2 meter, 5 meter, 17 meter, and 34 meter and their respective configurations. This program kicked off a commercial collaboration and resulted in the FloWind turbines. The FloWind turbines had several notable design changes from the experimental turbines that, in conjunction with a general lack of understanding regarding predicting fatigue at the time, led to the majority of the turbines failing prematurely during the late 80s.

17 WIND ENERGY↗
DOE OSTI2024

Critical design load case fatigue and ultimate failure simulation for a 10-m H-type vertical-axis wind turbine

While previous studies investigating critical VAWT design load cases have focused on large and relatively flexible Darrieus designs, the bulk of current commercial products seeking certification fall in the relatively small, stiff, and H-type configuration, such as the XFlow Energy Corporation turbine that this study compares against. Understanding the critical design load case impacts for both fatigue and ultimate failure for this size and type of VAWT are imperative for certification. The abil

Brownstein, Ian↗
DOE OSTI2026

U.S. Department of Energy Competitiveness Improvement Project (CIP) 2025 Prototype Manufacture Awardee: XFlow Energy

Vertical-axis wind turbines offer a compelling path to low-cost, reliable distributed energy that can compete with utility prices for businesses, landowners, and municipalities in rural areas. They generate power by using a main rotor shaft perpendicular to the ground to pick up wind from different directions without a yaw mechanism. However, previous commercialization attempts struggled to account for the unsteady aerodynamics of this design, leading to low power production and/or premature structural failure. To address these challenges, Competitiveness Improvement Project recipient XFlow Energy is building on work completed during three previous CIP funding awards to develop a 30-kW vertical-axis wind turbine that achieves both low costs and high energy output.

17 WIND ENERGY↗
DOE OSTI2025

Variable Curvature Pultruded Vertical Axis Wind Blades

XFlow Energy is developing a floating offshore vertical-axis wind turbine (VAWT) enabling a 70% reduction in the levelized cost of energy compared to floating horizontal-axis wind turbines (HAWTs). While the wind industry has historically been successful at lowering the cost of terrestrial wind systems, there are no scalable, economically viable floating wind solutions on the market with the levelized cost of energy (LCOE) of current floating offshore solutions is $200/MWh (Musial 2022). Low-cost blade production is one of the key technologies for realizing this target LCOE reduction. The proposed design uses a constant cross-section blade, enabling the use of pultrusion, a continuous, automated, mold-free production method. By employing blades with variable curvature, XFlow can minimize the bending stresses in the blades, allowing for light-weighting. Constant curvature pultrusion has been demonstrated on hollow sections. Variable curvature pultrusion has been demonstrated on solid sections. This project aims to develop a method of variable curvature pultrusion for hollow sections, as required for mass-optimal VAWT blades.

99 GENERAL AND MISCELLANEOUS↗
DOE OSTI2025

Variable Curvature Pultruded Vertical Axis Wind Blades

XFlow Energy is developing a floating offshore vertical-axis wind turbine (VAWT) enabling a 70% reduction in the levelized cost of energy compared to floating horizontal-axis wind turbines (HAWTs). While the wind industry has historically been successful at lowering the cost of terrestrial wind systems, there are no scalable, economically viable floating wind solutions on the market with the levelized cost of energy (LCOE) of current floating offshore solutions is $\$$200/MWh (Musial 2022). Low-cost blade production is one of the key technologies for realizing this target LCOE reduction. The proposed design uses a constant cross-section blade, enabling the use of pultrusion, a continuous, automated, mold-free production method. By employing blades with variable curvature, XFlow can minimize the bending stresses in the blades, allowing for light-weighting. Constant curvature pultrusion has been demonstrated on hollow sections. Variable curvature pultrusion has been demonstrated on solid sections. This project aims to develop a method of variable curvature pultrusion for hollow sections, as required for mass-optimal VAWT blades.

17 WIND ENERGY↗