Abstract
In this work, we propose a preliminary design of a horizontal-axis wind turbine (HAWT) as a candidate for the Dhofar Wind Farm project, in the southern Omani Governorate “Dhofar”, at the southwest part of the Sultanate of Oman. This wind farm (under construction) is considered to be the first commercial, utility-scale (50MW) wind farm in the GCC (Gulf Cooperation Council) area. The proposed wind turbine has an expected electricity generation of 2MW. We studied the wind atlas of Oman and from which we determined the maximum possible mean wind speed in the entire Sultanate and built our design based on that reference value, which is 6m/s (21.6km/h). After this, we applied a set of modeling equations that estimate the power output from the wind turbine rotor and matched the target electric power to the design variables using a MATLAB computer code. We reached a suitable design and we present here the distribution of the blade angle (twist angle), and the power per unit span along the rotor blade. The rotor design has 3 blades with a diameter of 70m and a rotational speed of 24rpm. This rotor gives 2.37MW of output power, which exceeds the target 2MW output, allowing for about 15% of power losses in the gearbox and generator. We utilized some commercial designs of wind turbines from different international manufacturers as references for typical limits or recommended values of some design parameters.
Highlights
For thousands of years, humans have been using wind energy
The equations given here are to be applied to give numerical results for the specific design we suggest for the wind turbine, but here they are only given in a suitable sequence to show the calculation steps
We first present the input parameters or limits we considered as fixed inputs or recommended design data based on the review of typical wind turbines from sample manufacturers of a wind turbines in the same family we are interested in, as well as the peak mean annual wind speed recorded for Oman
Summary
Examples that still exist today include sailing boats and windmills to grind grains. C., King Hammurabi of Babylon used wind power for irrigation [1, 2], where winds hit rotating bowls that pump water. Winds were used for the first time to generate electricity in 1888 in the USA by Charles Brush who invented the wind turbine [3]. The diameter of its rotor was 17m and it had wooden blades. Typical wind turbines are much larger and more powerful because of better materials, advances in aerodynamics as well as years of experience
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