scholarly journals Design and Manufacture of 1kW Wind Turbine Blades

2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (2) ◽  
pp. 173-196
Author(s):  
Fana Filli ◽  
Anwar M Mahmud ◽  
Mulu Bayray ◽  
Meseret Tesfay ◽  
Petros Gebray

To meet sustainable development goals and address concerns on climate change, much of the world's energy demand is expected to be delivered from clean alternative energy sources. Small-scale wind turbines have proven to be applicable for off-grid electrification. The objective of this study is to present the details on the design and manufacture of a 1 kW wind turbine blade for specified conditions. Blade element moment theory is adopted in the design of the geometry of the blade. Accordingly, the aerodynamic analysis on NACA 64A410 airfoil resulted in a blade radius of 1.95m, an overall twist angle of 31°, and a gradually tapering chord length of 0.062m at the root and 0.247m at the tip of the blade. Then, the wind turbine blades are manufactured from fiberglass (mat350g), resin, catalyst, and gelcoat.  Experimental results reveal the wind turbine blades started producing power at a cut-in wind speed of 3m/s. The maximum power achieved during the testing process was 900W at a hub wind velocity of 9m/s. This is lower than the expected 1000W theoretical power output due to not perfect workmanship in the manufacture of the wind turbine blades. This study will help in building local manufacturing facilities and enhance rural electrification through off-grid technologies.

Processes ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 9 (4) ◽  
pp. 622
Author(s):  
Yasser Elhenawy ◽  
Yasser Fouad ◽  
Haykel Marouani ◽  
Mohamed Bassyouni

This study aims to evaluate the effect of functionalized multi-walled carbon nanotubes (MWCNTs) on the performance of glass fiber (GF)-reinforced polypropylene (PP) for wind turbine blades. Support for theoretical blade movement of horizontal axis wind turbines (HAWTs), simulation, and analysis were performed with the Ansys computer package to gain insight into the durability of polypropylene-chopped E-glass for application in turbine blades under aerodynamic, gravitational, and centrifugal loads. Typically, polymer nanocomposites are used for small-scale wind turbine systems, such as for residential applications. Mechanical and physical properties of material composites including tensile and melt flow indices were determined. Surface morphology of polypropylene-chopped E-glass fiber and functionalized MWCNTs nanocomposites showed good distribution of dispersed phase. The effect of fiber loading on the mechanical properties of the PP nanocomposites was investigated in order to obtain the optimum composite composition and processing conditions for manufacturing wind turbine blades. The results show that adding MWCNTs to glass fiber-reinforced PP composites has a substantial influence on deflection reduction and adding them to chopped-polypropylene E-glass has a significant effect on reducing the bias estimated by finite element analysis.


Author(s):  
Alka Gupta ◽  
Abdulrahman Alsultan ◽  
R. S. Amano ◽  
Sourabh Kumar ◽  
Andrew D. Welsh

Energy is the heart of today’s civilization and the demand seems to be increasing with our growing population. Alternative energy solutions are the future of energy, whereas the fossil-based fuels are finite and deemed to become extinct. The design of the wind turbine blade is the main governing factor that affects power generation from the wind turbine. Different airfoils, angle of twist and blade dimensions are the parameters that control the efficiency of the wind turbine. This study is aimed at investigating the aerodynamic performance of the wind turbine blade. In the present paper, we discuss innovative blade designs using the NACA 4412 airfoil, comparing them with a straight swept blade. The wake region was measured in the lab with a straight blade. All the results with different designs of blades were compared for their performance. A complete three-dimensional computational analysis was carried out to compare the power generation in each case for different wind speeds. It was found from the numerical analysis that the slotted blade yielded the most power generation among the other blade designs.


2020 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Michal Kulak ◽  
Michal Lipian ◽  
Karol Zawadzki

Purpose This paper aims to discuss the results of the performance study of wind turbine blades equipped with winglets. An investigation focusses on small wind turbines (SWTs), where the winglets are recalled as one of the most promising concepts in terms of turbine efficiency increase. Design/methodology/approach To investigate a contribution of winglets to SWT aerodynamic efficiency, a wind tunnel experiment was performed at Lodz University of Technology. In parallel, computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulations campaign was conducted with the ANSYS CFX software to investigate appearing flow structures in greater detail. Findings The research indicates the potential behind the application of winglets in low Reynolds flow conditions, while the CFD study enables the identification of crucial regions influencing the flow structure in the most significant degree. Research limitations/implications As the global effect on a whole rotor is a result of a small-scale geometrical feature, it is important to localise unveiled phenomena and the mechanisms behind their generation. Practical implications Even the slightest efficiency improvement in a distributed generation installation can promote such a solution amongst energy prosumers and increase their independence from limited natural resources. Originality/value The winglet-equipped blades of SWTs provide an opportunity to increase the device performance with relatively low cost and ease of implementation.


2021 ◽  
Vol 263 (6) ◽  
pp. 71-82
Author(s):  
Braj Bhushan Prasad ◽  
Fabian Duvigneau ◽  
Daniel Juhre ◽  
Elmar Woschke

Sound emission from an onshore wind turbine is one of the significant hurdles to use wind energy to its full potential. The vibration caused by the generator is transmitted to the blades, which radiates the sound to the surrounding. The purpose of this experimental study is to present a passive vibration reduction concept, which is based on the high damping properties of granular materials. The efficiency of this concept will be investigated using a laser scanning vibrometer device. For the experimental purpose in the laboratory, small-scale replicas inspired by the original configurations are used as reference geometries for the wind turbine generator and the blades. Vibrations of the prototype, with and without granular material filling, will be determined and compared with each other. The influence of the amount of granular material inside the structure is also investigated. Apart from this, different types of granular filling are examined with respect to their efficiency in reducing the amplitude of vibration of the structure while being as light as possible in order to design a lightweight solution, which increases the overall mass of the wind turbine marginally.


Author(s):  
Abdulrahman Alsultan ◽  
Andrew Ryan Block ◽  
Trevor James Burg ◽  
Joshua Neal Vriesman ◽  
R. S. Amano

The renewable energy is a promising field, which shows a lot of potential for future energy solutions. The design of the blade shows a lot effects on the efficiency of the wind turbine, and the design parameters governs the performance characteristics. This paper addresses a number of innovative blade designs that was developed by alterations made to the existing conventional straight blade. These blades were extensively studied using computational fluid dynamics (CFD) software, and showed promising results, which was the motive behind this study. We are designing an experiment to study small scale wind turbines, which will enable us to gather data that will explain some differences in power and torque output. These steps will help us to come to a better understanding of some aerodynamic aspects that will impact the performance of each individual blade design. The comparing criteria for this study was the torque generation at the axes of rotation, which can be translated to several parameters, such as energy output, using some theoretical basis equations.


2015 ◽  
Vol 137 (5) ◽  
Author(s):  
Shahram Derakhshan ◽  
Ali Tavaziani ◽  
Nemat Kasaeian

Use of wind turbines is rapidly growing because of environmental impacts and daily increase in energy cost. Therefore, improving the wind turbines' characteristics is an important issue in this regard. This study has two objectives: one is investigating the aerodynamic performance of wind turbine blades and the other is developing an efficient approach for shape optimization of blades. The numerical solver of flow field was validated by phase VI rotor as a case study. First, flow field around the wind turbine blades was simulated using computational flow dynamics (CFD) and blade element momentum (BEM) methods, then obtained results were validated by available experimental data to show an appropriate conformity. Then for yielding the optimal answer, a shape optimization algorithm was used based on artificial bee colony (ABC) coupled by artificial neural networks (ANNs) as an approximate model. Effect of most important parameters in wind turbine, such as twist angle, chord line, and pitch angle, was changed till achieving the best performance. The flow characteristics of optimized and initial geometries were compared. The results of global optimization showed a value of 8.58% increase for output power. By using pitch power regulate, the maximum power was shifted to higher wind speed and results in a steady power for all work points.


2012 ◽  
Vol 538-541 ◽  
pp. 2700-2704
Author(s):  
Jia Hong Zheng ◽  
Hao Ran Ma

The optimization of wind turbine blades can increase the generator power and annual output of electricity. Illustrated by the case of 2MW wind turbine, optimizing the blade chord and twist angle by POS algorithm. Modeling by BLADED, analysis the change of lift and drag coefficients, the power coefficient, maximum power of wind turbine, minimum power of wind turbine, wind turbine generating capacity before and after optimization. The results show: the aerodynamic efficiency of optimized blade increased by 4.833 than that before optimization. In the wind speed of 12 m/s (that is lower and normal speed), the average power coefficient is improved by 0.05. The minimum power of the wind turbine increased by 4% -15% .The maximum power of the wind turbine increased by 3% -9%. And the annual production of power increased by 0.25%.


Author(s):  
Jae Sang Moon ◽  
Sung Soo Park ◽  
Sung Ho Yu ◽  
Sangkyun Kang ◽  
Jang-Ho Lee

Abstract This study evaluates the performance of a HAWT blade model using the lab-scale wind tunnel experiment. The small-scale wind turbine blade model has been designed based on the newly developed airfoil, KA2. A 3-blade rotor, based on the blade model, is tested using the digital wind tunnel. The performance is estimated by measuring the rotor-induced shaft torque. To estimate the performance properly, two different methods have been used depending on the blade rotation speed. Test results are compared with the theoretical estimation by BEM. This study provides the methodology to the performance test of wind turbine blades using lab-scale experiment. Moreover, results represent the applicability of the KA2 airfoil to wind turbine blades.


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