Student Work

InVentus: Optimization of Wind Energy

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Modern wind turbines display only 40% efficiency in harnessing the kinetic energy of wind for electrical generation. Nature has provided engineers with the concept of tubercles. Current tubercle-lined designs require complete replacement of the turbine blade, at a high cost, thus a need exists for a retrofit option to lower the cost of implementation. To analyze the effectiveness of a retrofit versus a fully tubercle-lined airfoil, InVentus obtained a virtual model of a standard turbine blade, then constructed tubercles on a duplicate model, comparing aerodynamic test results with those of fully tubercle-lined designs. This research shows that through further testing and model optimization, such as utilizing more tubercles per blade, a standard turbine blade retrofitted with tubercle units can increase the efficiency and effectiveness of existing wind turbines in similar form to complete replacement of blades, at a far lower cost.

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  • English
Identifier
  • GPS_2011_GRAND_Inventus_Optimization_of_Wind_Energy
Year
  • 2011
Date created
  • 2011-01-01
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Permanent link to this page: https://digital.wpi.edu/show/zw12z528p