Designing and simulation of wind turbine blades based on horizontal axis wind turbine model

Abstract

This project is related to designing and simulation of wind turbine blades based on horizontal axis wind turbine model. Blade shape of the wind turbine and angles of attack are two elements playing a vital role to seek optimum blade. Aerodynamic natures of blade produced two different forces namely drag force and lift force. Drag force and lift force on blade measure effectiveness level of that blade. Drag force is the force a flowing fluid exerts on a body in the flow direction. It is usually an undesirable effect and must be reduced. Lift force is needed because it would help wind turbine blade to turn. In this project two types of blade are designed according to NACA 0012 and NACA 9412 concept. The blade simulated to seek drag and lift forces and their coefficients for different angles of attack. A commercial fluid dynamics software namely EFD.Lab is used to simulate the performance of the blades which is used in wind turbines. The simulated results are compared with experimental wind tunnel data from real wind tunnel test. Other goal is to choose a suitable blade and its optimum angle of attack. Failure analysis also has been carried out to see force distribution on the blade. We can found that 2nd design of the wind turbine blade which is applying NACA 9412 airfoil concept gives more lift force and also lift coefficient at angle of attack 20 degree compare to NACA 0012.Using EFD.Lab simulation, 3 different air speeds was used which is 9.28 m/s, 17.63 m/s and 26.76 m/s and we found that velocity of air 17.63 m/s gives higher lift force to the blade.