Performance Characterization of EEEC (Eolic Energy Unit) for Horizontal Axis Wind Turbine

Wind energy is one of the fastest-growing forms of renewable energy which can be extracted using a wind turbines such as the Horizontal Axis Wind Turbines (HAWTs). All HAWT systems must go through experimental characterization for performance assessments. For this purpose, highly specialized wind units are employed. In this research a testing procedure has been evolved for characterizing the various HAWT configurations under variable operating conditions by using the Eolic Energy Units (EEEC). This research aims at developing comparative performance characterization curves for the EEEC unit by using the design of experiment (DoE) approach applied to HAWT system. The experiments for characterization have been conducted under different load and no-load conditions. The input parameters that include blade angles, the number of blades, and wind speeds have also been varied. Moreover, the results have been verified and validated through analytical calculations by using the Blade Element and Momentum (BEM) theory and computational analysis on ANSYS CFX. A number of Performance characteristic curves have been developed that exhibit the maximum power achieved is 40 W at 12 m/s with six blades configuration at \(20^{^\circ }\) blade angle. The verification and validation process of experimental results using analytical and computational approaches depict a good conformance whereby maximum error comes out is 11.1% and the average error comes out is 8% respectively.