Investigation of the Solidity Ratio in a Horizontal Wind Turbine

Abstract

A wind turbine-generator system; Parameters such as wind speed, turbine blade diameter, number of blades, turbine height, tip speed ratio and solidity ratio are affected. In this study, horizontal axis wind turbine with diameter of 130 cm and blade solidity ratio values of 7%, 8,6% and 9,8% were constructed and the tests were made according to different blade speed ratios. The required blades were obtained from PVC pipes of different diameters. The experimental study was actualized in Erciyes University Mechanical Engineering, Engines Laboratory. For each profile, blade rotational speeds and wind speeds at various distances have been studied. It has been determined that the wind speed is reduced by the distance difference and accordingly the number of blade speed is decreased visibly. In the wing profiles with different blade solidity ratios resulting from the work done, the wing structure with the solidity ratio of 8.6% gave the best performance. CL and CD coefficients of the profiled specimens were analyzed by FLUENTTM, a program of computational fluid dynamics. One of the factors that should be taken into consideration in the production of wind turbines is the blade solidity ratio.