Publication: Design and build of a small scale vertical axis wind turbine
Date
2015
Authors
Koo, Hui Yee
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Abstract
The demand for wind energy is on the rise due to the tremendous increase in fossil fuels. Also, there are areas which do not have electricity supply and these places coincided with the poorest as well as isolated countryside areas. These people are not able to afford a wind turbine, neither small nor big. Hence, this project focused on designing and building a small scale vertical axis wind turbine (VAWT) with high efficiency that anyone with common workshop materials could build as to harvest the wind energy to produce electricity. The turbine built featured interchangeable part for blades allowed blade made of different type of material be inserted for finding the material that could provide higher turbine's efficiency. Also, the turbine is connected to a generator for voltage generation. Then, from the results, polyfoam blade showed tip speed ratio of 0.48 and efficiency of 62.0 %, which is the highest value compared to plastic and cardboard blade. It is noted that polyfoam blade with the lightest density compared to plastic and cardboard blade, able to make the blade spin faster, creating greater force on shaft, thus making the generator produced more voltage output. In addition, it is also proved that the circuitry with capacitor is able to store voltage produced by the generator with the efficiency of capacitor shown 60.0 %. The VAWT built is economical and affordable as could be built using simple and easy to get material. This turbine could have great real-life application in rural areas to improve the people living condition by low cost electricity generation.
Description
TJ828 .K66 2015
Keywords
Wind turbine