The 9th International Forum on Strategic Technology (IFOST), October 21-23, 2014, Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh
Design & Construction of a Vertical Axis Wind
Turbine
G.M Hasan Shahariar
Department of Mechanical Engineering
Khulna University of Engineering & Technology
Khulna-9203, Bangladesh
hasanshahariar.kuet@gmail.com
Abstract— A wind turbine is a device that converts kinetic
energy from the wind into electrical power. Vertical Axis Wind
Turbine (VAWT) is one type of wind turbine where the main
rotor shaft is set vertically and it can capture wind from any
direction. The aim of this work is to develop a theoretical model
for the design and performance of Darrieus type vertical axis
wind turbine for small scale energy applications. A small 3
bladed turbine (prototype) is constructed and investigated the
performance for low wind velocity. The model is based on NACA
0018 airfoil & light wood is used as blade material. The full scale
Vertical Axis Wind Turbine is made for 36 inch height, 24 inch
diameter, blade cord length is 3.937 inch & blade height is 24
inch. A 100 watt 24 volt brushless DC motor is used to measure
output power. The whirling speed of blade & electric power
output for the corresponding speed is measured through
Tachometer & Wattmeter. The power curves show the relation
between the rotational wind speed of the turbine and the power
produced for a range of wind speeds. This approach indicates to
develop vertical axis wind turbine with better performance to
meet the increasing power demand.
Keywords—vawt; airfoil; wind velocity; power co-
efficient
I. INTRODUCTION
Renewable energy is normally defined as the energy
which comes from naturally replenished resources on a
human time scheme as like that wind, tides, sunlight, rain,
geothermal heat and waves. Around 16% of the global
annual consumption of energy comes from renewable
energy sources. About 30 countries all over the world have
renewable energy contribution greater than 20% of their
energy supply. Wind power is developing at a rate of 30%
yearly, at a installed capacity of 282,482 megawatts (MW)
worldwide at the end of year 2012. [1]
Wind energy is the 1st used energy source in the human
history. During the last decennium, technology of wind
turbines enhanced very fast. Previously wind wheels
produced just couple of kWh. Modern turbines can produce
millions of kWh in a year. [2]
The utmost efficient system to convert wind energy into
mechanical energy that can be harnessed for factual use.
Wind turbines produce electricity that can be used for
institutes, homes and businesses. Now a days, horizontal
978-1-4799-6062-0/14/$31.00©2014 IEEE
326
Mohammad Rashedul Hasan
Department of Mechanical Engineering
Khulna University of Engineering & Technology
Khulna-9203, Bangladesh
rashedulhasan.047@gmail.com
axis wind turbines (HAWTs) is the utmost familiar type in
use. But vertical axis wind turbines (VAWTs) has several
benefits, such as it can capture wind from any direction.
Because its shaft is vertical. However the generator and
transmission can be placed at the ground level.[3]
Such systems could be a more viable option in rural
areas where grid electricity cannot be implemented due to
lack of infrastructure. Moreover, in an interruption or a
breakdown of the grid, vertical axis wind turbine could act
as a backup. In un-electrified areas, basic electric energy
needs are usually obtained by batteries, which are charged
by grid electricity available in city centers. Therefore
vertical axis wind turbine could play an important role as an
alternative and cost effective source of battery charging.
II. WORKING PRINCIPLE OF VERTICAL AXIS WIND
TURBINE
In VAWT the airfoils are arranged as they are
symmetrical and having an angle that the airfoils are set
corresponding to the structure. This setup is equally
efficient on any directional wind. When the VAWT rotor is
rotating, the airfoils are moving forward through the air in a
round path. Relative to the blade, the resultant airflow
makes a varying small positive angle of attack to the blade.
This creates a overall force pointing diagonally forwards
along a definite line of action. This force can be projected
inwards past the turbine axis at a certain distance, giving a
positive torque to the shaft. As the airfoil rotates around the
back of the apparatus, the angle of attack changes to the
opposite sign but the generated force is still obliquely in the
direction of rotation, because the wings are symmetrical.
The rotor spins at a rate irrelevant to the winds seed. The
energy producing from the torque and speed can be
extracted and converted into useful power. Lift and drag
forces along the approaching net relative airflow
respectively. When the rotor is stationary and if the wind
velocity rises quite high then the rotor must already be
spinning to generate torque. Thus the design is not generally
self-starting.
 III. VARIOUS COMPONENTS OF VAWT
Vertical axis wind turbine have the following general
components:
• Rotor which convert wind energy into mechanical
power.
• A tower to support the rotor.
• Hub is the center of the rotor in where the rotor
blades are connected. Cast iron or cast steel is most
commonly used. In VAWT there are two hub at
upper and lower because blades are attached at two
points.
• The design of the particular blades also affects the
overall design of the rotor. Rotor blades hold the
energy out of the wind. They can capture the wind
and convert its kinetic energy into the circulation of
the hub.
• Shaft is the part which gets turned by the turbine
blades.
• The conversion of mechanical energy into electrical
energy is done by generator.
• The foundation is necessary to prevent the turbine
from blowing over in high winds
Fig 1: Components of Vertical axis wind turbine
IV. WIND TURBINE CALCULATION
A. Betz limit
The Betz number is a useful performance indicator of
wind turbines. It is the maximum amount of power that can
be extracted by a wind generator from the available wind
kinetic energy. This maximum turbine power is the
difference between the upstream and downstream wind
powers. The theoretical maximum rotor power coefficient is
Cp =16/27= 0.59, called the Betz limit after the first analysis
carried out by Betz (1926). However, the practical limits for
Cp are typically 0.46 for high speed two-blade system and
327
0.50 for three blade turbines. The drag turbine operates at
about 1/3 of the 0.59 Betz limit [4].
B. Wind turbine efficiency
Power available in the wind which is denoted by
theoretical power can be determined by
Pt=0.5*AV3 (1)
Wind energy captured by the blades or power produced
by the generator can be determined by:
Pa = T (2)
Amount of torque produced can be determined by:
T = 0.5*ACtV3 (3)
Angular velocity or RPM of the turbine can be
determined by,
=V/R (4)
Power co-efficient or efficiency of the rotor can be
determined by:
Cp = T/(0.5*AV3 (5)
Andrew Tendai Zhuga, Benson Munyaradzi, and
Clement Shonhiwa were use equation (1), (2), (3), (4) & (5)
in their paper to calculate the wind turbine performance [3].
V. DESIGN & CONSTRUCTION OF VERTICAL AXIS WIND
TURBINE
The most important factor of wind turbine design is how
much the blades can capture wind energy to rotate the shaft
of the generator. Therefore, the design has greatly impact
how much power the wind turbine produces energy. Blade
design is one of the most complicated and important aspects
of wind turbine technology. Today engineers are trying to
design blades that extract as much energy from the wind as
possible throughout a range of wind speeds and these blades
must be durable, quiet and affordable. Some important
criteria of wind turbine design are blade length, blade
number, blade shape, airfoil shape, blade materials, blade
weight, shaft strength etc. In this paper, a design of vertical
axis wind turbine is proposed which generated through a
solid modeling software.
A. Chosen airfoil
For the blade design of vawt the chosen airfoil is NACA
0018. At the frontal side of the rotor the blade has a positive
angle of attack and at the back side a negative angle of
attack. So symmetrical airfoils must be used. These airfoils
have lower maximum lift coefficients when they are
compared to asymmetrical airfoils of the same thickness. [5]
 Fig 2: Schematic diagram of Vertical Axis Wind Turbine (all the
dimensions are in inch)
Fig 4: Vertical Axis Wind Turbine

2) Main shaft: It is a cylindrical rod which is connected

to the generator shaft at the bottom through the table. Its
height is 18 inch and radius is 0.30 inch, made by iron rod.
It holds the arms which is connected to the blades. Thus it
holds the blades and rotate when wind is flown.
3) Rotor arms: Rotor arms are used to hold the blades.
Three arms are for three blades. There used two sets of arms
to fix up the blade accurately. Rotor arms are made by flat
metal plates, length is 10 inch. One side is connected to the
blades through screws and another side is connected with a
round plate which is connected to the shaft.
4) Generator: A 24 volt 600 rpm permanent magnet DC
motor is used as generator. Which is connected to the main
shaft. The generator is placed in the base structure through
round holder.
Fig 3: Cad design of Vertical Axis Wind Turbine

B. Blades materials & dimensions

In design, the number of blades are three. Blade length is
24 inch, chord length or width is 3.15 inch. As the use of
NACA 0018 airfoil so the maximum thickness is 18% of the
chord i.e. 0.57 inch. Lighter wood is used as blade
materials. The weight of each blade is 60 gm. Blades are
connected to the arms through screws.
C. Structural design
1) Base or table: This is the base structure on which the
turbine is situated. It is made by 0.18 inch thick metal
sheets. Its height is 14 inch and width is 10 inch. The main
shaft is mounted on it and it holds the total weight of the
turbine. It is made by heavy metal to prevent vibration Fig 5: Structure of rotor arm and rotor shaft of a Vertical Axis Wind
while rotating. In the bottom side there have a holder to hold Turbine
the generator.

328
 VI. EXPERIMENTAL SETUP
The vertical axis wind turbine is set on a small table. A
large size GFC fan is set in front the turbine. When the fan
is running the wind start to strike on the wind turbine blades
and thus the blades start to rotate. The blades rpm is
measured by a tachometer and the produced power is
measured by a multimeter to get various rpm and power by
controlling the speed of the GFC fan by a regulator.
Fig 6: Experimental setup for Vertical Axis Wind Turbine
VII. RESULTS
From the proposed configuration, different output
power is obtained from the generator for different rpm. It is
seen that, 32.4 watt power is obtain for 162 rpm which is the
highest output power and 11.5 watt for 57 rpm which is the
lowest output power. Various rpm is obtained by changing
the speed of the fan by a regulator. The obtained result will
be more accurate if it is tested in a wind tunnel and the wind
speed also can be determine through the wind tunnel.
Fig 7: RPM vs Power
VIII. FUTURE MODIFICATION
The performance of this vertical axis wind turbine can be
improved by following modification:
• Lighter material like plastic or tin can be used instead of
wood to construct the blades.
329
• If the chord length increase thus the blades can capture
more wind, hence performance is increased.
• The blade can be set at an angle to the arm thus it can
capture more wind.
• If one set of blade arm is used instead of two thus weight
is loses and performance can be increased.
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
The present work was developed in cooperation with
Md. Ashraful Islam, Department of Mechanical
Engineering, Khulna University of Engineering &
Technology as a part of research.
REFERENCES
[1] Edwin Cartlidge, "Saving for a rainy day", Science (Vol 334), 18
November 2011, pp. 922–924.
[2] John Oviemuno Ajedegba, “Effects of blade configuration on flow
distribution and power output of a zephyr Vertical Axis Wind
Turbine”, July 2008
[3] Andrew Tendai Zhuga, Benson Munyaradzi, Clement Shonhiwa,
“Design of alternative energy systems: A self-starting Vertical Axis
Wind Turbine for stand-alone applications (charging batteries)”,
Department of Mechatronic Engineering, Department of Production
Engineering, Department of Fuels and Energy, School of Engineering
Sciences and Technology, Chinhoyi University of Technology, P.
Bag 7724, Chinhoyi, Zimbabwe
[4] Asress Mulugeta Biadgo, Aleksandar Simonovic, Dragan Komarov,
Slobodan Stupar, “Numerical and analytical investigation of Vertical
Axis Wind Turbine”, FME Transactions (2013)
[5] Kragten A., “ Rotor design and matching for Horizontal Axis Wind
Turbines”, report KD 35, July 1999, nett price 40 euro, engineering
office Kragten Design, Populierenlaan 51,5492 SG Sint-Oedenrode,
The Netherland.