Research Article | OPEN ACCESS
Evaluation of Comparative Performance of Three Wind Turbine Rotors
Basharat Salim and Mahir Es-Saheb
Mechanical Engineering Department, College of Engineering, King Saud University,
P.O. Box 800, Riyadh 11421, Saudi Arabia
Research Journal of Applied Sciences, Engineering and Technology 2013 2:606-618
Received: May 21, 2012 | Accepted: June 15, 2012 | Published: January 11, 2013
Abstract
This study presents the performance evaluation of wind turbine implementing the mathematical model based on Blade Element Momentum (BEM) theory. The investigation concentrates on the comparison of power producing characteristics of three types of rotors for a horizontal axis wind turbine. The rotors considered have rectangular plan form shape with sections fabricated from aerofoil sections of NACA families. The three families of NACA airfoils used in this investigation are NACA4424, NACA23024 and NACA62-206. The lift and drag characteristics, of the rotors were experimentally obtained using 250 mm span and 60 mm chord rotor blades in an Armfield 300×300 mm subsonic, suction type and closed jet wind tunnel. The wind speeds used in the investigation were in the range of 8 to 11 m/s, which is the range of wind speeds found near the coastal belt and the mountainous parts of Saudi Arabia. Three bladed rotor subscale models of the wind turbines rotors having 250 mm rotor diameter, 100 mm blade span and 30 mm chord were used for testing rotational behavior of the wind turbines in a Plinth 600×600 mm blow down wind tunnel facility. The parameters used for the comparison in this study include variations in setting angle, diameters, tip speed ratio, taper, wind speed and angle of attack. It is observed that rotors with NACA4424 aerofoil sectioned blades produce more power at lower wind speeds and lower angles of attack where as rotors with NACA23024 aerofoil sectioned blades generate better performance at higher wind speeds and higher angles of attack. Further the taper of the rotors produced more decrease in the mass of the rotors than the decrease power produced by these. The reduction in mass could drastically decrease the inertia of the rotors which could result in higher rotational motions. Results depict the dependence of power produced on the Cd/Cl characteristics of the rotors.
Keywords:
Blade element momentum theory, fluid dynamics design, wind power, wind turbines,
Competing interests
The authors have no competing interests.
Open Access Policy
This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made.
Copyright
The authors have no competing interests.
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ISSN (Online): 2040-7467
ISSN (Print): 2040-7459 |
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