Optimization of the Helical Wind Turbine Blade

Abstract

The application of wind energy is not a foreign thing, especially in this era of unlimited globalization where humans need green energy to run their daily lives. Therefore, the idea of evaluating the aerodynamic performance of the helical wind turbine blade designs is the major factor for the start-up of this project. Besides, the scope of the study for this project is to develop helical wind turbine CAD models by using SolidWorks software and also perform CFD simulation for the helical wind turbine design by using ANSYS software. This project involves combining the process of Computer-Aided Design (CAD) and Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD). Computer-Aided Design (CAD) is used to design the wind turbine blade and Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) is used to simulate the wind turbine blade. This project is carried upon few blade characteristics tested such as blade length and blade angle and from the simulation, the final degree of torque could be obtained thus enable the power generated to be calculated by using a mathematical equation of power. The results for the best blade angle show that 45 Degree blades produce the highest power. Next, the results for the best blade length show that a 100 cm blade produces more power compare to the other. The 45 Vertical Blade produced less power compare to the commercial design which is 177.96 Watts in the transverse direction but proved more efficient in the longitudinal direction as it generates the power of about 475.76 Watts.