INVESTIGATION OF ROLLED-UP EFFECT OF THE FORWARD-SWEPT 3-D WIND TURBINE BLADES

Abstract

Noiseless aerodynamics of a rotor blade is a vital research objective towards environmentally friendly wind turbine technology and military advancement of helicopter blades. Blade planform of a wind turbine determines the limiting streamline that responsible for the aerodynamic characteristics. This paper focused on the aerodynamic flow visualization showing the flow pattern around forward swept horizontal axis wind turbine (HAWT) for different radius and different wind velocities. The experiments were conducted in a wind tunnel. Tuft patterns were used for flow visualization, and rope brake dynamometer was employed for measuring the performances in different wind speeds. It is found that the planforms can form 3-D folds streamline that show the detailed mechanism of rolling-up effect, and give different performances in the cases of different radius and wind speeds.