ISSN 2319-5347, ISI Impact Factor: 0.763

VOLUME 03 NO. 01 JANUARY 2015:

Title:             Numerical analysis of aerodynamics of wind turbine blades
Authors:      Pavan Pandit, P. P. Revankar
Abstract:    Wind energy has been shown to be one of the most viable sources of renewable energy. With current technology, the low cost of wind energy is competitive with more conventional sources of energy such as coal. Most airfoil blades available for commercial grade wind turbines incorporate a straight span-wise profile and airfoil shaped cross sections. These blades are found to be very efficient at lower wind speeds in comparison to the potential energy that can be extracted. This paper explores the possibility of increasing the efficiency of the blades at higher wind speeds while maintaining efficiency at the lower wind speeds. The design intends to maintain efficiency at lower wind speeds by selecting the appropriate orientation and size of the airfoil cross sections based on a low oncoming wind speed and given constant rotation rate. This study compares the wind turbines employing symmetric blade profiles and the same blade profiles with camber without hindering the dimensions of the turbine. The performance of these turbines was investigated using tools such as Javafoil and computational fluid dynamics (CFD). The properties of the airfoil such as the drag coefficient(Cd), lift coefficient(Cl), tip speed ratio(TSR) and the pressure coefficient(Cp) are computed using different models like Standard k-ε model, Eppler’s transition model and calcfoil Stall model. Computations at different angles of attack were carried out.

Keywords:   Renewable Energy, Airfoil Blades, Wind Speeds, Camber, Javafoil, CFD, C_d, C_l, TSR, C_p , CFD Models
Pages:           83-87

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