DESIGN OF WIND ENERGY TURBINE BLADES: A review

Abstract: A review of the current status for wind turbine blade design is presented, including efficiency, propulsion, blade design, and load on blades. The aerodynamic design principles for a modern wind turbine blade are in detailed; it includes blade plan shape/quantity, aerofoil selection and optimal attack angles. This paper investigates the multidisciplinary nature of wind turbine design as it applies to turbine blades. The goal is to reduce the end unit cost of electricity, amortized over the turbine lifetime, for a particular location. In this paper, a developed methodology is used to predict the optimal performance of the horizontal axis wind turbine (HAWT) and Vertical axis wind turbine (VAWT) in terms of the most critical parameters such as tip speed ratio, pitch angle, blade number and wind speed. Interesting generalized performance maps were conducted. Results show that low pitch is recommended for low wind speed regime. Keywords: wind turbine; blade design; blade angle; HAWT, VAWT, aerodynamic, Efficiency.