Abstract:
Presently, Sri Lankan government has paid more attention to generate electricity
from the renewable energy sources. As a result of that wind energy has been
identified as one of the promising candidates to generate electricity in future.
Therefore, performance improvement of the wind turbines under the wind condition
in Sri Lanka can be important. This paper presents an attempt to develop a
horizontal axis wind turbine physical model. Also through running the developed
physical model, possibilities of improving the turbine performance for water
pumping system was explored while identifying practical difficulties.
According to the previous studies, this kind of systems stands with a working
efficiency around 25% and turbine having 65% mechanical efficiency. Wind blade
profile was developed using Solidworks software and it was further analyzed using
flow simulation package. Then a new wind blade profile was designed which was
easier to fabricate and install. Thereafter the physical model was developed to
identify the other variables and possible defects that could occur in real
applications. The water pumping system, yawing system and full structure were also
designed. Designed structure was analyzed using STAAT Pro structural package to
identify the stress distribution.
The model was tested in Galle where it was exposed to wind to measure related
parameters. Mainly focused was given to find mechanical efficiency and power co efficient (Cp) of the rotor. This was done using parameter of the torque with respect
to the wind speed. Thereby the plots power against wind speed and Cp against tip
speed ratio were produced.
According to results his wind water pumping system can satisfy 22000 1/day, if it
has average wind speed around 3.5m/s. Also it would be obviously at the frontier to
save the electrical energy consumption. This design can be successfully used in
many applications. Such as beach hotels in the Coastal area to fulfill their water
pumping requirement.
