Wind lens performance investigation at low wind speed

In this research work, we investigated a diffuser augmented wind turbine's performance or better known as a wind lens. The wind lens consists of a circular flanged diffuser and a horizontal axis wind turbine with a diameter of 0.6 m. The diffuser length to the diameter ratio is 0.226, and the flange height to diameter ratio is 0.1. The performance of the wind Lens is investigated numerically by solving the flow field using Reynolds Averaged Navier-Stokes for incompressible flow. The finding of this work shows that the flange's role is significant to the performance; also, it shows that the opening angle of the diffuser is essential if the rotation speed of the turbine is set wisely. The wind lens's output torque at an inlet speed of 5 m/s is superior to the bare turbine by 30-60%, which shows the wind lens's usefulness at low wind speed

Wind turbine design using thin airfoil sd2030

This paper presents the performance of a horizontal axis wind turbine of diameter 0.6 m designed to operate at low Reynolds number. In this design work, the SD2030 thin airfoil was selected as a profile section for the turbine blades. The taper ratio, section twist angle and blade angle were optimized using the Blade Element Momentum (BEM) theory. In a numerical investigation, the aerodynamic flow field was computed using the two-dimensional Reynolds Averaged Navier-Stokes equations for incompressible flow to predict the performance of the airfoil at the Reynolds number of 1 x 105. The numerical results obtained were in accordance with the wind tunnel test’s result and thus validating this Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) works. Results depict that this new turbine design with the airfoil of SD2030 can rotate at a low start-up wind speed of 2.4 m/s, testifying that the design is successful, and that the turbine is capable to operate at low Reynolds number such as 1 x 105 with the desired output

Aerodynamic analysis of horizontal axis wind turbine using blade element momentum theory for low wind speed conditions

All around the world, a rapid growth of energy demand during the last decades. An ideal alternative to meet this additional increasing demand would be through renewable energy resources such as wind energy. With over 300 GW of installed wind capacity worldwide and the target for future increase of capacity of more than 15% per year, the research to improve wind energy technology is further required. For countries around the equator where wind speed is low, the need for new innovative design of wind turbine for low wind speed condition or class 1 wind is of primary urgency. A new type of airfoil for low wind speed turbine blade need to be designed. The objective of this study is to investigate the design parameters influencing the performance of three blades Horizontal Axis Wind Turbine (HAWT). Blade Element Momentum Theory was used to find the optimal performance, in term of the coefficient of power (Cp), which rates the turbine blade’s ability to extract energy from the available wind stream. The result shows the relationship between the changes of the power coefficient with tip speed ratio. The maximum power coefficient found was 0.57 at tip speed ratio 4.8. It was then shown that Cp reduced for higher tip speed ratio