Towards an Optimal Wind Energy Harvest for EV Charging Station: Design of a Data Acquisition System and Aerodynamic Modeling of HVAWT Blade

摘要

The design and control of a data acquisition system (DAQ) for a newly constructed six (6) degrees of freedom (DOF) force balance system is investigated. Six (6) load cells (3 vertical and 3 horizontal) are attached to the force balance in the wind tunnel, the load cells convert the forces experienced by the model in the wind tunnel into voltage which is then transformed into readable data using the National Instrument (NI) Data Acquisition (DAQ) device USB 9237. Using the NI DAQ USB 9237 communication protocol, the MATLAB DAQ toolbox enables the data acquisition and analysis of the forces and moments on all axis of the force balance. The performance evaluation and analysis of an aerodynamic design model for a wind turbine blade is carried out by comparing the performance characteristics of the airfoil, subject to the local wind conditions at the University of Lagos. Two- dimensional numerical computational investigation are performed on three airfoils (NACA 0018, NACA 2412 and NACA 0012) to analyze the effect of variation in Angle of Attack from -15~0 to 15~0 at varying wind velocity, using the ANSYS FLUENT software. The lift and drag characteristics of each profile are obtained and compared to determine the profile with better performance characteristics. It is anticipated that the experimental acquisition and computational analysis provide useful information for adequate selection and accurate calibration of the new load cells for the DAQ system.