DESIGN AND PERFORMANCE OF A TURBINE SUITABLE FOR AN AEROGENERATOR

As a part of a large project aimed at finding the optimal configuration for an aerogenerator to exploit wind power, an investigation was launched to find a simple and reliable way to design a turbine to operated in a shrouded type of aerogenerator. Since turbines of this type operate at relatively low Mach numbers and stagnation pressures, it is possible to base the design on the assumption that the flow through the turbine is steady and axisymmetric, and that the fluid is incompressible and perfect. To check the reliability of the proposed model for the turbine design, two turbines were built and tested. The tests covered a wide range of inlet and angular velocities and were conducted with several numbers of blades. The results of these tests clearly demonstrate that the proposed design scheme can be used with confidence for the design of a turbine that is intended to work inside an aerogenerator shroud. Equations, graphs, and tables show calculations. Plates and curves are appended.