Study on Performance and Flow Condition of a Cross-Flow Wind Turbine With a Symmetrical Casing

Abstract

A cross-flow wind turbine has a high torque coefficient at a low tip speed ratio. Therefore, it is a good candidate for use as a self-starting turbine. Furthermore, it has low noise and excellent stability; therefore, it has attracted attention from the viewpoint of applications as a small wind turbine for an urban district. However, its maximum power coefficient is extremely low (10%) as compared to that of other small wind turbines. Prevailing winds in two directions often blow in urban and coastal regions. Therefore, in order to improve the performance and the flow condition of the cross-flow rotor, a casing suitable for this sort of prevailing wind conditions is designed in this research and the effect of the casing is investigated by experimental and numerical analysis. In the experiment, a wind tunnel with a square discharge is used and main flow velocity is set as 20 m/s. A torque meter, a rotational speed pickup, and a motor are assembled with the same axis as the test wind turbine and the tip speed ratio is changeable by a rotational speed controller. The casing is set around the cross-flow rotor and flow distribution at the rotor inlet and the outlet is measured by a one-hole pitot tube. The maximum power coefficient is obtained as Cpmax = 0.19 with the casing, however Cpmax = 0.098 without the casing. It is clear that the inlet and the outlet flow condition is improved by the casing. In the present paper, in order to improve the performance of a cross-flow wind turbine, a symmetrical casing suitable for prevailing winds in two directions is proposed. Then, the performance and the internal flow condition of the cross-flow wind turbine with the casing are clarified. Furthermore, the influence of the symmetrical casing on performance is discussed and the relation between the flow condition and performance is considered.