LOW-SPEED WIND TURBINE DESIGN AND FABRICATION

摘要

A wind energy has getting more attention due to its free-source, its nature of renewable energy, and free of carbon dioxide emission. As the wind map varies area to area, the wind energy collection strongly depends on the site. In order to maximize the amount of energy captured, an improved, low airspeed wind turbines are demanded to be designed. A wind turbine studied was created using the NACA 4412 foil shape and a decreasing chord length with increasing distance from the center of the turbine. The pitch was also varied along the span of the blade. The blade was analyzed using CFD and tested in a wind tunnel facility. The turbine was connected to a motor which was connected to a resistor and current and voltage meters. Using the voltage and current data at a prescribed rate of rotation, the model generated decent power output. The study focused mostly for a low-speed wind up to 2m/s (or 3.4 mph). For practical use the turbine would need to be scaled to a greater size and a proportional-integral-derivative controller (PID controller) that can generate higher resistance would need to be employed.