Aerodynamic Design and Performance Analysis of Small Scale Horizontal Axis Wind Turbine with Different Blade Configurations

Wind energy has emerged as one of the mostly utilized renewable energy sources in recent years. The use of small-scale horizontal axis wind turbines (HAWT) as a source of electricity is a viable solution. Despite significant progress in the wind energy field, there is always space for improvement in terms of efficiency, cost and the energy extracted. This thesis discusses the aerodynamic design and performance analysis of a small scale HAWT using two reliable methods: The blade element momentum (BEM) method and the computational fluid dynamics (CFD) method. This study is divided into two major parts. Two blade configurations with the same length of 5m are designed and analysed. The first part discusses the aerodynamic performance analysis of the 1st blade configuration using the BEM method. The blade is designed and aerodynamically optimized using QBlade software. Power output, power coefficient, and annual yield for a given Weibull distribution is determined using QBlade software. The second part investigates the impact of integrating a stationary sealed gap trailing edge flap to the 1st blade configuration (2nd configuration) for HAWT applications using both CFD and BEM methods. Accordingly, performance of the 3D blade with a trailing edge flap is determined. Finally, a comparative analysis is conducted to find the optimal blade design amongst both configurations based on power output and annual yield. The BEM results show that At the design tip speed ratio of 7, the power coefficient in the 2nd design configuration is 8.3% higher than the 1st design configuration. According to the 2nd configuration, the CFD method over-predicts the power coefficient compared with the BEM method. The power coefficient from 3D CFD simulation is approximately 12% higher. The annual yield of the wind turbine with the 1st and 2nd configuration is found as 6378 kWh/year and 6944 kWh/year respectively.