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Experimental study on blade pitch angle effect on the performance of a three‐bladed vertical‐axis Darrieus hydro turbine
Author(s) -
Benzerdjeb Abdelouahab,
Abed Bouabdellah,
Achache Habib,
Hamidou Mohammed K.,
Gorlov Alaxender M.
Publication year - 2019
Publication title -
international journal of energy research
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.808
H-Index - 95
eISSN - 1099-114X
pISSN - 0363-907X
DOI - 10.1002/er.4417
Subject(s) - turbine , wells turbine , reynolds number , pitch angle , water turbine , mechanics , turbine blade , materials science , flow (mathematics) , fixation (population genetics) , water tunnel , environmental science , marine engineering , mechanical engineering , physics , engineering , turbulence , chemistry , vortex , geophysics , biochemistry , gene
Summary Because of higher concerns about increasing global warming, energy consumption and reduction of conventional energy resources and growing attention are given to renewable energy and to cross flow turbines such as the Darrieus turbine to harness water energy (water currents, reservoirs, rivers, and oceans). The aim of the experimental investigation presented in this paper is to evaluate the effect of hydro Darrieus turbine blades fixation pitch angle “ i g ” on its performance. Four main sets of experimental tests were conducted for the same vertical‐axis hydro turbine model (VAHT) with four blade fixation pitch angles ( i g = −1.75°, −4.5°, 1.75°, and 4.5°), at various water flow velocities ( V = 0.3‐0.64 m/s corresponding to a water free flow Reynolds number of 2.5 × 10 4 to 4.36 × 10 4 ). A comparison between the results of the present work and with those of a previous experimental study for i g = 0° shows that the best performance of the tested turbine is obtained when the blades are set at a pitch angle of 1.75°. In fact, the corresponding optimum mechanical power and power coefficient relative increases are respectively as much as 82% and 67% with respect to i g = 0° at V = 0.37 m/s and as much as 65% and 77% at V = 0.46 m/s. The worst performance is obtained for the negative blades fixation pitch angle of −4.5°; at the water flow velocity of 0.37 m/s, this leads to power, and power coefficient relative decreases respectively about 75% and 81% with respect to the results obtained for i g = 1.75° and respectively about 54% and 68% of those obtained in the previous work for i g = 0°.