Wind Turbine Final Lab Report 2021

Executive Summary Wind Energy is an old example of using a renewable energy source to solve a variety of mechanical issues. Wind Tunnels are used to test the design of modern wind turbines, and were utilized in the same ...

Executive Summary Wind Energy is an old example of using a renewable energy source to solve a variety of mechanical issues. Wind Tunnels are used to test the design of modern wind turbines, and were utilized in the same way in this experiment. The purpose of this experiment was to test the power generation of wind turbines for different amounts of blades at varying wind speeds, and then to test the power generation of the designed blades at varying pitches and amounts. The experiment was setup simply, a Wind Tunnel and Fan were connected to a power source which could vary the power input to the fan, along with a raspberry pi built to measure wind speed and power output by the turbine generator. The hardware for data collection was connected to a computer with software to interpret the readings collected by the raspberry pi. Balsa wood, a utility knife, and the same setup were provided for the design phase for the experiment. Data was then collected based upon the task, this included wind velocity, radial position, voltage and power output by the turbine generator. These data were then converted via calculation to such values as volumetric and mass flow rate and pressure difference. In Results and Description, the data shows the results for the wind speed and pressure difference for each velocity and radius at each voltage interval. Then the data shows the results for power output of the two-blade and three-blade turbines at each voltage. The three-blade variation did marginally better than the two-blade design at every interval. Lastly, the data shows how increasing the fans power would increase the power generated. The effectiveness of a wind turbine at Bowling Green, Ohio was examined. It was found that a single turbine will only provide 41.24% of the required energy to power a residential complex of 50 houses. If the city desires their entire power to be provided by wind energy, they will be required to build three turbines of the proposed design per residential complex in the city.