An Experimental Test of the Effect of Cup Diameter on the Power Performance of Novel Design HC-Type VAWT

Abstract

Wind energy is one solution to overcome the energy problem in Indonesia. This study aimed to analyze the effect of cup diameter on the power performance of an HC-type vertical axis wind turbine (VAWT). The wind turbine used a combination of an H-type Darrieus wind turbine and a type-C rotor VAWT. The Darrieus HC-rotor wind turbine blade has a height H = 800 mm and diameter D = 800 mm with C-rotor variations on the tip with diameters of 76,2, 101,6, and 152,4 mm. The wind tunnel used an electric motor with a power of 1 HP (740 Watt) and 1400 rpm connected to a fan. The variation of wind speed was set to 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 and 7 m/s. The results showed that: (a) the highest rotation speedal speed was achieved by the HC-rotor diameter of 76,2 on 105 rpm with a wind speed of 7 m/s; (b) the highest value of the coefficient of power (Cp) is achieved by the HC-rotor diameter of 101,6mm (c) the highest value of the coefficient of torque (Ct) is achieved with the HC-rotor diameter of 152,4mm (d) the Darrieus HC-rotor wind turbine is suitable to be used in tropical regions that have low wind speeds. This result provides important information about the effect of the C rotor radius on the performance of HC-rotor Darrieus wind turbine blade vertical axis.