Design and prototyping of miniature wind turbine and power generation section for the exploitation of wind generated by vehicle movement in road tunnels

Abstract

A strong development of renewable energy is envisioned in order to achieve targets of reduction for greenhouse emissions. In particular, small scale systems for distributed renewable energy production can be very useful to this purpose in urban areas where the generated power can be directly used.In this context, the present paper concerns the aerodynamic and electromechanical design of a small wind turbine for the exploitation of the wind generated by vehicles movement in road tunnels. The generated energy is directly used to power road delineators, usually equipped with LED technology and, therefore, characterized by low energy requirements, DC supply and long life.The first part of the study addressed the definition of the operating conditions of the wind turbine inside road tunnel. Then, the aerodynamic design of the turbine was conducted through CFD simulations maximizing the efficiency with reduced size and cost. The power generation section is chosen and coupled to the turbine for integrated system prototyping. Simulation results prove that power generated by a single wind turbine is suitable to supply 10 delineators maximum, covering about 100 m of tunnel. Moreover, wind turbine performance is also validated through test on a real scale prototype of the complete device.