Title

Desirable airfoil features for smaller-capacity straight-bladed VAWT

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

5-1-2007

Publication Title

Wind Engineering

Volume

31

Issue

3

First Page

165

Keywords

Darrieus, Straight-bladed, VAWT, Vertical axis wind turbine

Last Page

196

Abstract

In the small scale wind turbine market, the simple straight-bladed Darriues types vertical axis wind turbine (SB-VAWT) is very attractive for its simple blade design. A detailed aerodynamic performance analysis of the main aerodynamic challenges of this type of wind turbine were first discussed and subsequently the authors conducted further literature survey and computational analysis to shortlist aerodynamic characteristics of a desirable airfoil for a self-starting and better performing SB-VAWT. The required geometric features of the desirable airfoil to achieve the short listed characteristics were also discussed. It has been found out that conventionally used NACA symmetric airfoils are not suitable for smaller capacity SB-VAWT. Rather, it is advantageous to utilize a high-lift and low-drag asymmetric thick airfoil suitable for low speed operation typically encountered by SB-VAWT.

DOI

10.1260/030952407781998800

ISSN

0309524X

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