Improving The Horizontal Axis Wind Turbine Blade Profiles

Abstract

Due to greenhouse gases, we feel the effects of global warming more and more every day, so we need far more efficient Horizontal Axis Wind Turbines (HAWTs). This study was carried out to develop turbine blades with higher momentum coefficient (Cm) for the HAWTs. For this purpose, the blade profile that has higher performance was improved using Taguchi and Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) methods. With reference to the NACA 0012 profile, changing the upper and lower cambers of the profile derived the new blade profiles. Using the Taguchi method, the optimum blade profile with a maximum Cm coefficient was obtained. After the profile to be used on the turbine blades is determined, the blades are designed with the Blade Element Momentum (BEM) theory. A 3dimensional model for the HAWTs is developed using ANSYSv.16.2/Fluent Software. CFD analyses were performed using a sliding mesh approach to get more realistic and reliable results and to gain more knowledge of the performance. Numerical analysis results show that power coefficient (Cp) of the optimum profile is increased by 7.42% according to the NACA 0012 profile.

Effect of Air-Ducted Blade Design on Horizontal Axis Wind Turbine Performance

“…Continuity, momentum and turbulence equations for air-ducted blade model were solved with ANSYS/Fluent software, utilizing the pressure-based time-dependent formulation. As a turbulence model, k-epsilon RNG with a result of less than 5% error was preferred in horizontal-axis wind turbines [40]. In the turbulence model, y + is preferred to be around 1 for an effective solution [39].…”