Numerical Comparison of the Effect of Blade Material on Wind Turbine Efficiency

Wind energy, which is enormously important to protect the environment, can be converted into electricity by wind turbines. Wind turbines consist of a base, a tower, a generator, a gearbox, a hub and rotor blades. Horizontal wind turbines are designed with three blades to have higher efficiency. Wind turbine blade can be made of wood, steel, aluminum, carbon fiber-reinforced plastics and glass fiber-reinforced plastics. In this work it is aimed to study the effect of blade material on the wind turbine efficiency using numerical method. The commercial software ANSYS Fluent is used to calculate and compare the efficiencies of wind turbines with different blade materials. In the numerical analysis the flow is modelled as viscous, laminar and incompressible. Results show that the frictional effect on the hub bearing is bigger if a denser material is used. This effect reduces the efficiency of wind turbines.