Analysis of Small-Scale Wind Turbine Blades for Optimal Power Generation: A CFD-BEMT Study
Abstract
This study numerically compares the aerodynamic performance of blades for horizontal axis wind turbines (HAWT) with a rotor diameter of 0.5 m, aiming to maximize the generated power. Two blade geometries were evaluated, based on the GOE 770 and AH 93-W-215 profiles, selected due to their accessibility for working with additive manufacturing techniques in prototype fabrication. In this context, the chord and twist distributions were defined using Blade Element Momentum Theory (BEMT) for fixed pitch operation. The simulations were conducted in the open-source software OpenFOAM, in transient mode, using a RANS approach for turbulence modeling. The flow velocity was set at 5 m s-^1 , a wind speed characteristic of the region in which the study was developed, and the rotor rotation condition was imposed based on experimental data obtained in a wind tunnel, ensuring the representativeness of actual operating conditions. The main metric used to compare the performance of the wind turbines was the average torque of the last 10º simulated in each set. Finally, the results indicate that the blade based on the GOE 770 profile has a higher power generation capacity than the one based on the AH 93-W-215 profile under the tested conditions, highlighting the joint importance of aerodynamic profile selection, prototype manufacturability, and transient numerical modeling in the optimization of small-scale wind turbines.
Keywords
Renewable Energy, Wind Energy, HAWT, BEMT, CFD, OpenFOAM, RANS