Experimental Study on Performance of Vertical Axis Wind Turbine with NACA 4-Digital Series of Blades

Abstract

The experimental studies of output power performances of a vertical-axis-wind-turbine (VAWT) had been conducted in suction-type low speed wind tunnel with various free stream velocity. Torque and rotation speed of blades were measured by using torque meter and optical detector to analyze the effect of blade-section shape on the performance of wind turbine. The test model of experiments in the research was H-rotor VAWT. Three shapes of the NACA 4-digital series blade-section, NACA0022, NACA6404, and NACA6422 were taken in this work. Effects of thickness and camber of blade-section, blade numbers, and blade setting angles on the performance of VAWT have been analyzed in detail. The results show that NACA6422 blade-section has rotation speed of 42% higher than that of NACA0022 when the free stream velocity is below 12 m/s and the blade numbers are 4-blade type. Wind turbines with NACA6422 blades also showed that about 10% higher output power than that of NACA0022 blades among the tested range of free stream velocity. Results indicated that wind turbine with blades of anti-symmetric and thick blade-section was generally more suitable for applying to VAWT. All results of this study can be used the optimization design of VAWT blades in further.