Abstract
Designing horizontal axis wind turbine (HAWT) blades to achieve satisfactory levels of performance starts with the knowledge of aerodynamic forces acting on the blades. In this paper, a design method based on blade element momentum (BEM) theory is explained for HAWT blades. The method is used to optimize the chord and twist distributions of the blades. Applying this method a 1000W HAWT rotor is designed. A user-interface computer program is written on VISUALBASIC to estimate the aerodynamic performance of the existing HAWT blades and used for the performance analysis of the designed 1000W HAWT rotor. The program gives blade geometry parameters (chord and twist distributions), coefficients of performance and aerodynamic forces (trust and torque) for the following inputs; power required from the turbine, number of blades, design wind velocity and blade profile type (airfoil). The program shows the results with figures. It also gives the three dimensional views of the designed blade elements for visualization after exported to AutoCAD.
Highlights
MOTIVATION AND BACKGROUNDSupply uncertainties, and environmental concerns are driving the developed nations to rethink their energy mix and develop diverse sources of clean, renewable energy
Aerodynamic design of horizontal-axis wind turbine blades was investigated and a userinterface computer program called as BLADE DESIGN PROGRAM was written for the use of its outputs in further studies
All the studies on horizontal axis wind turbine (HAWT) blade design were presented on a user interface computer program written on VISUALBASIC
Summary
Supply uncertainties, and environmental concerns are driving the developed nations to rethink their energy mix and develop diverse sources of clean, renewable energy. According to 2016 Global Wind Energy Council (GWEC) statistics, all wind turbines installed in Africa had a capacity of 3,906MW [1,2,3]. The blades of wind turbine receive kinetic energy of the wind, which is transformed to mechanical energy, electrical forms, depending on our end uses. The objective of this study is to develop a user-interface computer program for Horizontal-Axis Wind turbine (HAWT) blade design and power performance prediction using the Blade Element Momentum (BEM) theory. The mechanical strength criteria, and economical aspects are important and must be considered during the design of wind turbines.The design of HAWT blades, to achieve satisfactory level of performance; starts with knowledge of the aerodynamic forces acting on the blades. The blade geometry parameters are required for dynamic load analysis of wind turbine rotors [4,5,6,7]
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