International Journal of Research and Innovation in Engineering Technology ISSN: 2394 – 4854

Volume: 02 Issue: 12 Pages: 39 – 44

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IJRIET
ANALYSIS OF BLADE DESIGN HORIZONTAL
AXIS WIND TURBINE

M.Sathiskumar1, R.Ramesh2, R.Balaji3

1,2,3
Assistant Professor, Department of Mechanical Engineering, Er.Perumal Manimekali College of Engineering
E-mail-ID: [email protected], [email protected],[email protected]

Received 28 November 2016, Revised 30 November 2016, Accepted 01 December 2016

Available online 05 December 2016

Abstract
The demand for power is increasing day by day in India. We depend upon the traditional fuel for power production.
We know that our traditional fuel resources are limited which is getting short day by day. In this condition wind
power can be a very suitable replacement for power production. Particularly in rural India the domestic turbine or
micro wind turbine can play an important role as it is cheaper than the other sources of power production.
Computers are used to perform the calculations required to simulate the interaction of liquids and gases with
surfaces defined by boundary condition. In this paper, CFD analysis of wind turbine blade, a complete drawing, and
details of sub-system are carried out. Angle of twisted also has a great impact on power output if the angle of twist
range is kept within the optimized limit of change of angle of attack the turbine would be more sensitive to change
in wind speed.

Keywords: Wind energy, CFD, Blade geometry.

1. INTRODUCTION systems. The wind potential of India is very high.

The wind turbines have been installed and wind
Wind turbines are machines that generate electricity energy is being harvested, predominantly in the high
from the kinetic energy of the wind. In history, they wind velocity areas. However, due to the restriction
were more frequently used as a mechanical device of space, the comparatively lower wind areas are
that turned hennery.Today, Turbines can be used to beginning to populate with similar wind turbines. In
generate large amounts of electrical energy in wind order to ensure the extraction of maximum wind
farms both onshore and offshore Nowadays potential even at lower wind speeds, these turbine
electricity is the major problem in this world blades have to be designed and analyzed to suit the
especially in Tamil Nadu, India. In the present area of low wind areas. At present India stands fifth in the
steadily rising fuel costs, wind energy is becoming an world of wind power generation. Taking into
increasingly attractive component of future energy consideration that large portion of the Indian land

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International Journal of Research and Innovation in Engineering Technology ISSN: 2394 – 4854
Volume: 02 Issue: 12 Pages: 39 – 44
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will not be available for the use of traditional 40%.Most of the air passes the turbine blade without
windmills due to low wind speeds; a generator which doing any work on the blade.
would produce the energy even at low wind speed is
This study simulates air flow around inclined
required. Also the transmission losses in India are
NACA0018 airfoil. Lift, drag coefficient, lift to drag
very high. Hence, to reduce the losses due to
ratio and power coefficient around the airfoil were
transmission the turbine could be placed near the
calculated and compared with different velocity.
place of consumption.
With the increasing of wind velocity, lift and drag
2. LITERATURE REVIEW coefficient increases and maximum lift to drag ratio
starts to increase then degreases again. Maximum lift
In order to extract power from the wind, there are so to drag ratio is reached around 4 degree. Power
many blade design of wind turbine, all work on the coefficients were calculated at the speed of 10 m/s
same principle of energy production. Rotors capture and graph was plotted. With the increasing angle of
the energy of the wind, which give drive to the shaft attack pressure difference between upper and lower
which is connected to an electrical generator which surface increases.
creates electrical energy through induction. Higher
the wind speed higher will be the RPM of the rotor 4. AIRFOILS
and more energy would be extracted from the wind Major features of such an airfoil are shown in Figure
by the turbine rotor blades. 3.For the efficient energy extraction; blades of
There are two general types of wind turbine designs. modern wind turbine are made with airfoil sections.
They are determined by the mounting of the rotor The airfoils used for the earlier day’s wind turbines
blades, which are either vertical or horizontal. were the aviation airfoils under the NACA (National
Horizontal‐ Axis turbines main advantage is that Advisory Committee for Aeronautics) series. NACA
there rotating shaft runs parallel with the ground. The specifies the features of the airfoil by numbers. For
advantage of having a horizontal axis is that one have example, in a four digit specification, the first
a control on blade pitch giving the turbine blades he number denotes the maximum camber of the airfoil at
optimum angle in w.r.t to the wind. Mounting the the chord line (in per cent of chord), the second
wind turbine on tall towers enables them to have number gives the location of the point of maximum
obstruction free high speed wind flow. camber from the leading edge (in tenth of the chord)
and the third and fourth numbers indicate the
The other most important thing in a HAWT is the maximum thickness (in per cent of the chord). Thus a
Betz limit. Betz limit limits the maximum power NACA 2415 air foil have maximum camber of 2 per
produced by a wind turbine to 59.3%.But all the cent, located at 0.4 times the chord length from the
experiment carried out by different researcher shows leading edge and the maximum thickness is 15 per
that the actual value of the bets limit ranges between cent of the chord.
25%-45%.This is due to the fact that 33% of the air
passing through the rotor do not do any work on to .
the rotor. This is possible only by doing design
change in the rotor blade. Researchers have
experimented on various blades at different angle of
attack and various pitch angles.

3. PROBLEM STATEMENT
We know that the maximum theoretical power Figure: 1 Important parameter of an Airfoil
produced by a wind turbine is 59% as per theory of
Betz Limit. But practically it ranges between 25%-

M.Satishkumar et.al IJRIET | May 2016, Available @ http://www.ijriet.com

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International Journal of Research and Innovation in Engineering Technology ISSN: 2394 – 4854
Volume: 02 Issue: 12 Pages: 39 – 44
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Figure: 3 Section of rotating blade

And power is given by

Figure: 2 Airfoil lift and drag
𝑃 = FR × 𝑟 × 𝜔
When an airfoil is placed in a wind stream, air passes
Angular velocity is given by
through both upper and lower surfaces of the blade.
Due to the typical curvature of the blade, air passing 𝜔 = 2𝜋𝑁/60
over the upper side has to travel more distance per
Consider the cross section of the rotating blade of a
unit time than that passing through the lower side.
wind turbine as in Figgure3. Apart from the wind
Thus the air particles at the upper layer move faster.
velocity „V‟, a point at the section is subjected to a
According to the Bernoulli’s theorem, this should
velocity VT due to rotation of rotor as shown in
create a low-pressure region at the top of the airfoil.
figure. Thus the velocity VR experienced at this point
This pressure difference between the upper and lower
of is the resultant of V and VT. VR will have lift and
surfaces of the airfoil will result in a force F. The
drag component as shown in figure. Under this
component of this force perpendicular to the direction
condition, the angle of attack VR and the chord line of
of the undisturbed flow is called the lift force L. The
the airfoil. For the same rotational speed, VT at
force in the direction of the undisturbed flow is called
different section of the blade varies with the distance
the drag force D.
from the hub. Hence, the angle at which the resultant
velocity approaches the rotor would also be different
FL = ρ.Vr2 CL (N)
along the blade section, being steeper at the root of
And the drag force (D) by the blade. As we have seen, the CD/CL ratio for an
airfoil is minimum at particular angle of attack. To
FD= p.Vr2 CD (N) maintain this optimum attack angle throughout the
blade sections, the blade may be twisted along its
Where CL and CD are the lift and drag coefficients length.
respectively.
5. MODELING, MESHING
Resultant force is given by
The First task in CFD analysis is preparation of
FR = ( FD2 + F L2 ) ½ (N) geometry. First, the type of airfoil is used is decided.
Then find out the airfoil co-ordinate for drawing the
airfoil shape. Here NACA 0018 selected for the
analysis. Here the maximum thickness is 18% which
indicate the maximum thickness (in per cent of the
chord).In this analysis, the geometry is prepared in
the pro-e software package and then after it is saved
in IGES format. Then import this geometry in the
Ansys 12.0

M.Satishkumar et.al IJRIET | May 2016, Available @ http://www.ijriet.com

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International Journal of Research and Innovation in Engineering Technology ISSN: 2394 – 4854
Volume: 02 Issue: 12 Pages: 39 – 44
____________________________________________________________________________________

Dimensions of the blade:

Chord length C= 240mm
Length of blade =500mm
Chord length at the 500mm distance= 40 mm
Airfoil NACA0018
Simulation type Steady Simulation
Fluid material Air
Temperature 288K Figure: 5 Meshed blade in Ansys

Kinematic 1.4×10-5m2/s
viscosity
6. RESULT AND CALCULATION
Density 1.225kg/m3
Calculations: The following procedure is used to
Pressure 101325Pa calculate the numerical power developed by the wind
Wind speed 3-11m/sec turbine
α = 60; V0 = 8 m/s : N = 51rpm; r =1.2m; ρ =
Boundary Velocity inlet & pressure
1.225kg/m3
condition outlet
VT = r × ω = 1.2x 2.π. 51/60=6.4088 m/sec
Table: 1 Computational condition
VR = (6.4088 2+82)
The blade is made in the pro-e software. In pro-e
software this is possible by using the blend tool. = 10.250 m/s
From fluent software we get the valve of
CL=0.9559, CD=0.001375
Therefore we get the valve of
Drag force =0.5x ρx VR2x CD
=0.5x1.225x10.252x0.001375
FD=0.0881N
Lift force =0.5x ρ x VR2x CL
=0.5x1.225x10.252x0.9559
FL=76.22N
Figure: 4 Blade design in Pro-E Resultant Force, R = (FL2+ FD2)1/2
= (0.08812+76.222)1/2
=76.22N
Numerical power, P = (Rx VR)
=620.43Watts

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International Journal of Research and Innovation in Engineering Technology ISSN: 2394 – 4854
Volume: 02 Issue: 12 Pages: 39 – 44
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The table 1 is shown below is the numerical power Wind

produced by the wind turbine at different angle of Rpm of the Analytical power
Sr.no speed
rotor (Watts)
attack and different wind velocity. (rpm)

1 19 3 120.606

2 25 4 235.881

3 32 5 558.361

4 38 6 964.849

5 44 7 1532.144

6 51 8 2287.05

7 57 9 3256.366

8 62 10 4466.894

9 70 11 5945.436

Table: 2 Power produced by using wind turbine

Table: 3 Analytical power produced by wind
To calculate the analytical power developed by the
velocity
wind turbine, following method is used.
CP=Numerical Value/Analytical valve
P= 1/2 ρ. A. V^3
= 620/22807.04
P= ½ 1.225*3.141*1.524^2*8^3
= 0.271
= 2287.04watts
The below table 4 is obtained by comparing the
The below table-3 shows the analytical power
numerical power with the analytical power. So we
produced by blade at different wind velocity.
can obtain the coefficient of performance at different
wind speed and different angle of attack. From the
below table we also obtain the value maximum
coefficient of performance

M.Satishkumar et.al IJRIET | May 2016, Available @ http://www.ijriet.com

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International Journal of Research and Innovation in Engineering Technology ISSN: 2394 – 4854
Volume: 02 Issue: 12 Pages: 39 – 44
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References
[1] Ramesh, R., and C. Ramesh. "Design, analysis
and fabrication of canard wing configuration."
International Journal of Research and
Innovation in Engineering Technology Vol.
02, Issue 09, pp-21-26, ISSN: 2394 – 4854,
2016.
[2] Wang, L., Tang, X., & Liu, X. (2012).Blade
Design optimization for fixed pitch fixed
Speed wind turbine. ISRN renewable Energy
2012
[3] N R Deshmukh and S J Deshmukh,
Development of modified wind turbine
International journal of Mechanical
Engineering Vol. 2, No. 3, Jul 2013.
[4] R.S. Amano, R.J. Malloy “CFD Analysis on
Table: 4 Coefficient of performance of wind turbine Aerodynamic Design Optimization of Wind
Turbine Rotor Blade”, pp 71-75 2009.
From the result of above table no. 4 we can plot the
graph, Fig. No.6 shows the graph of Coefficient of [5] Sandip A. Kale, “Theoretical Analysis of
Performance versus Velocity of air V0. Horizontal Axis Wind Turbine for Low Wind
Velocity” International Journal of Renewable
Energy Research, Vol. 2, Issue 1pp93-98,
2015.
[6] H. V. Mahawadiwar, V.D. Dhopte,
P.S.Thakare, Dr. R. D. Askhedkar,
Aerodynamic design of Horizontal Axis
micro wind turbine blade NACA -4412 aero
foil. “CFD Analysis Of Wind Turbine
Blade“Vol-2, Issue-3, pp-3188-3194, 2012.

Figure: 6 Graph wind velocity vs CP

7. CONCLUSION
The maximum value of coefficient of performance
(CPmax = 0.271) was observed at angle of attack 70
and 80 and the velocity of 8 m/s. This blade can
generate maximum power of 620Watts at maximum
CP, at angle of attack 80 and velocity of air 8m/s. It
was observed that value of numerical power increases
as angle of attack increases from 40 to 80, after 70 the
value of numerical power reduced. Hence critical
angle of attack for this blade is 80.

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