Wind tunnel tests on a wind turbine with contractor and diffuser arrangement

This article illustrates the improved wind energy capture of a standard small-scale wind turbine with a novel contractor and diffuser. The contractor and diffuser arrangement is used to accelerate the air-flow across the turbine's blade system and has been optimised using computational fluid dynamics. The results obtained from wind tunnel experiments show a 43% increase in power output for the same incident wind speed if the contractor and diffuser arrangement is used. These results confirm data predicted through computational fluid dynamics. It is illustrated that CFD offers a virtual wind tunnel for aerodynamic optimization.