Effect of Blade Pitch and Number of Blades on the Performance of Hub-less Wind Turbine Using CFD
Author(s):
Balasubramanya H.S†*, T Anil Kumar†, Hemavathy S†, S M Aradhya‡
Affiliation(s):
† Faculty, Dept. of Mechanical Engineering, Ramaiah Institute of Technology, Bangalore – 560054
‡ Dept. of Mechanical Engineering, Kalpataru Institute of Technology, Tiptur – 572202
Corresponding Author Email: [email protected]
This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
Airborne wind energy, a promising renewable energy technology providing potentially game-changing solution to clean and sustainable energy generation. This uses airborne devices to harness the wind power. This research article discusses on the design and analysis of a new wind energy invention, Hub less Wind Turbine (HWT) by varying number of blades and its pitch lengths. This work is motivated by the aim to make the world less reliant upon fossil fuel sources. This innovation is presently under investigation by scientists and start-ups. The proposed turbine utilises lightweight and strong tether replacing expensive tower and offering an additional cost advantage by eliminating foundation, next to the higher capacity factor at much lower total mass. In present work, an open-cantered blade design is employed to enhance rotational kinetic energy. This reduces any flow restrictions due to the presence of hub, thereby improving power generation capacity. The aerodynamic performance is analysed through Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) simulations with the help of commercial ANSYS software. The obtained results were quite encouraging. Based on the simulation, relative efficiency obtained considering the Betz limit equal to 76% with a power coefficient of 0.45 and optimum blade pitch of 1000mm.