Experimental Analysis of Vertical Axis Wind Turbine

Abstract

bstract: The project focuses on Design, Fabrication and Testing of a VAWT (vertical Axis Wind Turbine) with Wind deflectors. The project is an ongoing research project and the phase we carried out was concerned in shifting the design from Darrieus type to Savonius type, which created the necessity of freshly designing all the parts, increasing the torque and rpm of the VAWT by implementing a deflector/guide vane system, make the whole structure portable meanwhile maintaining the project within a very low cost range. The said objectives can be are to be achieved by manipulating the knowledge of Design of Machine element, fluid dynamics, Energy Technology and CFD analyzing. A major concern was fashioning the design to enable the VAWT to operate with a maximum efficiency. Several parameters were analyzed with respect to wind speed to determine the best value for each parameter which would give the highest efficiency, thus ensuring the maximum ultimate performance of the VAWT. The parameters that were considered for analyzing are the number of blades the rotor should have, positioning of the blade (i.e. the distance from the shaft to blade and the angle the blade creates with the shaft), the shape of the deflector, and the angle of the deflector so as to generate the highest efficiency. Above parameters were analyzed using ANSYS/Fluent software package and the ultimate design was produced in accordance with the obtained results.