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Experimental Comparison of Energy Generation between Conventional and Wavy Leading Edge Blades in HAWT

Santiago Bernal-del Río and Gilberto Osorio-Gómez
EAFIT University, Design Engineering Research Group (GRID), P.O. Box 050022, Medellín, Colombia

Abstract—Horizontal Axis Wind Turbine (HAWT) is one of the most important devices for electricity generation from Wind Energy, and design of new blades has become a fundamental research field to improve the efficiency and to reduce cost of this system. This article presents a preliminary comparison between two micro Wind Turbines (WT), one with standard blades and another one with Wavy Leading Edge (WLE) morphology, inspired by the flippers of the humpback whale, to work at low-speed wind conditions. To perform a correct validation, the authors propose a four steps approach for the design, manufacture and test of a WT. First, the design of the blade, followed by the design of the Wind Turbine (WT). Next step is the manufacture of two functional models, one with WLE and another with standard blades, to make a relative comparison, and, finally, the acquisition of real-time data from these systems for the corresponding analysis in terms of energy generation. Results show that the WLE has an increase of over 20% in energy production in all the tests that were performed, with respect to the standard blade.

 
Index Terms—Energy generation, experimental comparison, HAWT, wavy leading edge, wind turbine

Cite: Santiago Bernal-del Río and Gilberto Osorio-Gómez, "Experimental Comparison of Energy Generation between Conventional and Wavy Leading Edge Blades in HAWT," International Journal of Electrical and Electronic Engineering & Telecommunications, Vol. 9, No. 6, pp. 441-446, November 2020. Doi: 10.18178/ijeetc.9.6.441-446

Copyright © 2020 by the authors. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0), which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided that the article is properly cited, the use is non-commercial and no modifications or adaptations are made.