An Integrated Computer Program for Blade Design of Small to Medium Wind Turbine Generators

Abstract

This paper presents the development of an integrated computer program for blade design of small to medium wind turbine generators. Since the blade design process is time consuming and recursive, an integrated computer program with combination of aerodynamic and structural considerations is developed to make the entire design process faster and more efficient. In this software package, there are five embedded sub-functions, including an aerodynamic coefficient generator, an airfoil database, an automatic blade modeler, a wind flow generator and the performance evaluation under operating conditions. This is a window based PC program written in visual C language and designed to cooperate with the commercial CAD and FEA software. The blade profile can be built automatically once all the design parameters are specified. Furthermore, intensive aerodynamic analyses of the blade design can be carried out with the aid of wind flow generator. This integrated computer program has been employed for the blade design of the laboratory scale 150KW wind turbine generator to verify its efficacy.