Research of electric power regeneration using automotive cooling fan (Improvement of wind turbine efficiency by changing blade profile)

Abstract

The common purpose for vehicle development has always been lowest fuel consumption. Therefore, engine and motor hybrid vehicles, and plugin hybrid vehicles are rapidly prevailing. The electricity plays an increasingly important role as a power source for those vehicles. This work aims at developing a new cooling fan for vehicle engine. This fan can operate as a cooling fan at low vehicle speed. At high vehicle speed, however, the fan is rarely used as a cooling fan. Therefore the fan can be used as a wind turbine, which generates electric power. We have developed a new fan rotor that can operate both as a cooling fan with the same performance as the current fan and a wind turbine at higher performance than the current fan.

Keywords

• turbomachinery
• wind turbine
• wind energy
• axial fan
• s-shaped profile
• electric power regeneration