Efficiency improvement of a new vertical axis wind turbine by individual active control of blade motion

Abstract

In this paper, a research for the performance improvement of the straight-bladed vertical axis wind turbine is described. To improve the performance of the power generation system, which consists of several blades rotating about axis in parallel direction, the cycloidal blade system and the individual active blade control system are adopted, respectively. Both methods are variable pitch system. For cycloidal wind turbine, aerodynamic analysis is carried out by changing pitch angle and phase angle based on the cycloidal motion according to the change of wind speed and wind direction, and control mechanism using the cycloidal blade system is realized for 1kw class wind turbine. By this method, electrical power is generated about 30% higher than wind turbine using fixed pitch angle method. And for more efficient wind turbine, individual pitch angle control of each blade is studied. By maximizing the tangential force in each rotating blade at the specific rotating position, optimal pitch angle variation is obtained. And several airfoil shapes of NACA 4-digit and NACA 6-series are studied. Aerodynamic analysis shows performance improvement of 60%. To realize this motion, sensing and actuating system is designed.