Scaling of wind turbine aerodynamics: wind tunnel experiments

Abstract

A small-scale wind turbine model was designed and manufactured to study its aerodynamic thrust force and the harvested flow energy. To provide a good understanding of the aerodynamics of the small-scale wind turbine at the low Reynolds number, the performance of three different types of blade airfoils was studied. The main motivation for the design of a new miniature wind turbine model was to achieve realistic values of the thrust force and the power coefficient on the model scale. A new blade profile with a thickness of 10% was designed and employed to reach the high tip-speed ratio, which is characteristic of contemporary wind turbines.