Comparative Study of New Airfoils for Small Horizontal Axis Wind Turbines

The high cost and poor performance of small wind turbines make them not widely used. In an attempt to meliorate this situation, the authors propose to investigate alternative airfoils with different chord and pitch angle distributions that permit low manufacturing, installation and maintenance costs, as well as high efficiency. To achieve these goals, two airfoil sections, Gottingen and Joukowski, together with different chord and pitch angle distributions were simulated by using a validated numerical code based on the blade element momentum (BEM) method. The chord geometry includes constant, linear, and elliptic distributions while the twist angle includes constant and linear distributions. The results reveal that the linear pitch distribution reduces the thrust in the intermediate region of the blade and the bending moment at the root and reduces the power coefficient for both rotors. Rotors with elliptic chord distribution show increased forces in the intermediate region. Joukowski based blades with elliptic chord distribution show lower thrust compared with those with linear chord distribution. The linear chord distribution increases the thrust in the intermediate region and reduces it at the tip and root regions. Blades with multiple airfoils show marginal improvement. The Gottingen and Joukowski based rotors have similar annual energy production (AEP). The Joukowski based rotor with linear pitch and linear chord distribution shows better performance at low velocities and easy to manufacture which makes it a good candidate for small power wind turbines.