Title: Investigation of various airfoils for maximisation of lift in horizontal axis wind turbine - a case study

Authors: Kedar Mehta; Robin Ranjan; Amit Sata

Addresses: Department of Renewable Technologies, Tinytech Plants, Rajkot, Gujarat, India ' Wind World India Pvt. Ltd., Wind World Towers, Plot No. A-9, CTS No. 700, Veera Desai Road, Andheri, Mumbai 400053, India ' Mechanical Engineering Department, Faculty of Engineering, Marwadi Education Foundation Group of Institutes, Rajkot, Gujarat, India

Abstract: Wind energy can be considered to be one of the most reliable and sustainable energy sources of world. In India, more than 2,300 MW capacity of wind turbine power has been installed in 2014. This can be further increased by improving overall efficiency of wind turbines. The efficiency of wind turbine is governed by various geometric characteristics, and the airfoil of a blade is considered to be one of most influencing parameters. In the present work, HAWT is designed to provide electric power of about 10 KW that is to be used at authors' hometown (Rajkot). Different five airfoils with varying angle of attack of blades are modelled, and analysed to identify the most suitable airfoil for the optimum lift, and stall angle. The NACA 4412 was found to be the most suitable for providing optimum lift as well as stall angle. The prototype of all airfoils were also tested, and simulated for flow separation.

Keywords: airfoil; stall; lift coefficient; drag coefficient; National Advisory Committee of Aeronautics; NACA; National Renewable Energy Laboratory; NREL; computation fluid dynamics; CFD; horizontal axis wind turbine; HAWT.

DOI: 10.1504/IER.2017.087916

Interdisciplinary Environmental Review, 2017 Vol.18 No.2, pp.169 - 188

Received: 09 Dec 2016
Accepted: 19 Jul 2017
Published online: 07 Nov 2017 *

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