Experimental Research on Vertical Axis

Wind Turbine
Guoying Feng， Zhizhang Liu, Bao Daorina, Zheng Gong
School of Energy and Power Engineering
Inner Mongolia University of Technology
Hohhot, China
Fengguoying417@163.com

Abstract—In China, researches on vertical axis wind turbine

focus on aerodynamic design mostly. This paper presents the
wind tunnel test data of a Darrieus wind turbine. The output
powers of wind turbine systems with and without optimal power
controller are tested separately. The factors influencing the
output power of the wind turbine are analyzed and design
methods for wind turbine with high efficiency are proposed
through the optimal matching of rotor and generator.
Keywords-Vertical axis wind turbine; Matching of rotor and
generator; Optimal power controlling
II. EXPERIMENT EQUIPMENTS
The rotor is composed of three curved-blades with
approximate diameter of 1.3m and height of 1m. The chord of
blades is 0.085m. The rated power of generator is 300W and
rated voltage is 26V. The equipments [7] used in the testing
are shown in Fig 1(schematic) and Fig 2. A battery-like-load,
which was made by Inner Mongolia University of Technology,
was used to change the output voltage of generator. The
battery-like-load has the charging performance like battery [7].

Wind Turbine
I. INTRODUCTION Anemometer
The most common vertical axis wind turbine (VAWT) is Testing box
the Darrieus turbine invented in 1931 [1], several wind farms Battery-like-load
with commercial Darrieus turbines were operated in California Data acquisition
in the 80s [2] and the biggest turbine that was built had a rated
power of 4 MW[3]. However, the Darrieus turbine suffered Computer
from structural problems as well as a poor energy market.
Consequently most turbines were dismantled and the research Figure 1. Schematic of wind turbine testing system
effort was closed [3-5]. The further research is focused on
small-scale VAWT [6]. With the extension of wind turbine’s
application, researches on vertical axis wind turbine have been
started in China. But most of works are focused on
aerodynamic design of rotor. For choice of generator, just the
rated power is paid attention basing on the simple calculation
on rated power of rotor. And optimal power controllers have
not been specially designed. So that the systems have a lot of
disadvantages such as can’t start up at reasonable wind speed
and low efficiency.
This paper presents wind tunnel test data of a 300W
Testing
Darrieus wind turbine system, which is composed of a vertical box
Battery-
axis turbine, generator, battery, and optimal power controller.
like-load
The output power of wind turbine system (with controller) was
tested firstly; secondly, the output powers of wind turbine (no
controller) were tested in response to the inflow wind speed
and rotational speed, then we can get the maximum output Output of
the wind
powers of the wind turbine for different wind speed. turbine
Comparing the first and second testing results, the efficiency of
the controller is obtained. Thirdly, the matching characteristic Figure 2. Wind turbine testing system
of rotor and generator was tested in response to the output
voltage. Based on the experiments, the paper proposes a design
method of high efficiency wind turbines through the optimal
matching of rotor and generator.

978-1-4244-2487-0/09/$25.00 ©2009 IEEE

 III. TESTING OF MAXIMUM OUTPUT POWER AND controller is influenced by electronic components in the
EFFICENCY OF CONTROLLER controller and inaccuracy of the optimal power controlling.
Normally, the loss of the electronic components is very small
A. Testing of Maximum Output Power of the Wind Turbine and can be ignored. So obviously, the optimal controlling is
Excluding controller, the generator was connected directly inaccurate.
with testing box which was connected with the battery-like- 0.4
load. Keeping the wind speed constant, changing the output 8m/s
power of generator through changing the load, then we can get
10m/s
the generated power of wind turbine in response to the inflow
wind speed and rotational speed, as shown in Fig3. In fact, we 0.3 12m/s
also can obtain the output power of the rotor in response to the

Efficiency of the system

inflow wind speed and rotational speed by the output power of 14m/s
generator plus the generator’s efficiency. As we can see, there
is different optimal rotational speed for different wind speed; 16m/s
0.2
the wind turbine generates maximum power when it operates at
the optimal rotational speed. To discover the factors governing
the efficiency of the system, Fig. 4 demonstrates Fig. 3 using
the dimensionless parameters-tip speed ratio and system’s 0.1
efficiency. The system’s efficiency is the product of the
efficiencies of rotor and generator. The efficiency of the rotor
is the function of the tip speed ratio regardless of the variations
in the inflow wind speed, but as shown in Fig .4, the efficiency 0
of the system in response to different wind speed are different 1 2 3 4 5
slightly, because the efficiency of the generator varies with T ip speed ratio
output voltage and current. However, it is obvious that the tip Figure 4. Effect of tip speed ratio on effeciency of the system
speed ratio is the most important factor which influences the
system’s efficiency.
maximum output power Pmax Pk Pk/Pmax
500
8m/s 400 1
10m/s
12m/s
400 14m/s 0.8
300

Controller efficency
16m/s
Output power,W
Output power, W

0.6
300 200
0.4

200 100
0.2

100 0 0
8 10 12 14
Wind speed,m/s
0
300 500 700 900 1100 Figure 5. Output power of wind turbine system and
effeciency of the controller
Rotational speed, rpm

Figure 3. Variation of wind turbine output power

with wind speed and rotational speed
B. Testing of Output Power of the Wind Turbine System
Output power of the wind turbine system PK is shown in
Fig. 5. The system includes an optimal power controller. The
essence of the optimal power controlling is to let wind turbine
operate at an optimal tip speed ratio (constant tip speed ratio)
for different wind speed. Comparing the maximum output
power Pmax shown in Fig. 3 and output power of wind turbine
system PK, we can obtain the efficiency of the controller
P /P = 0.75 ± 0.5
( K max ) as shown in Fig. 5. Obviously, the
efficiency of the controller is low. The efficiency of the
IV. TESTING OF THE MATCHING
CHARACTERISTICS OF ROTOR AND GENERATOR
Similar with horizontal axis turbine, the aerodynamic
performance of vertical axis turbine bases on its shape
parameters. But for generator, after it was produced, its output
performance varies with load. The curves of 12±0.5V, 17±
0.5V, 25±0.5 and 27.5±0.5V in Fig. 6 demonstrate the output
power of generator varies with rotational speed and output
voltage. Put these curves and the generated power of the wind
rotor (shown in Fig. 3) in the same figure, we can compare the
matching characteristics of rotor and generator in response to
output voltage.
 As shown in Fig.6, when the wind speed is 8m/s and output 0 λ
voltage of the generator is 17±0.5V, wind speed 12m/s and V n= (1)
2π
output voltage 25 ± 0.5, the rotor and generator matches R
60
approximately at the highest value of the system’s efficiency. where V is wind speed, n is rotational speed of rotor, λ0 is
Then a conclusion could be produced that for different wind
speed, rotor and generator can always matches approximately optimal tip speed ratio and R is radius of rotor.
at the highest value of the system’s efficiency through When rotor runs at constant tip speed ratio, the output power
changing the load. of rotor is calculated by

Rated voltage of the generator is 26V, so the output power 1

of wind turbine excluding controller was tested charging for P= ρAV 3 Cp max (2)
24V battery. When the wind speed was low than 8m/s, almost 2
no power output; while the wind speed higher than 12m/s, the where P is output power of the rotor, ρ is ambient air density,
wind turbine operated approximately at the highest efficiency. A is swept area, Cpmax is optimal aerodynamic power
So for the wind turbine system without optimal power coefficient of the rotor. The power coefficient curves are given
controller, the optimal matching of rotor and generator is very
in Fig. 7. The expected Cpmax is approximately 0.4 which is
important.
reasonable compared to previous H-rotor experimental data [8].
500 25±0.5V
8m/s 27.5±0.5V So we have two methods to reach optimal matching of rotor
10m/s
12m/s and generator. The first is, after the aerodynamic parameters of
400 14m/s rotor are determined, that means the optimal tip speed ratio
16m/s 17±0.5V
λ0 and optimal aerodynamic power coefficient Cpmax are
Output power, W

determined, calculating rotational speed and output power of

300
the rotor by (1) and (2). Consequence is shown in Fig. 7. Then
we can design or choose a generator according to output power
12±0.5V
200 of the rotor in response to rotational speed. The desired output
power of the generator is given in Fig. 7, which is the product
of output power of the rotor and efficiency of the generator.
100 The second is, after the parameters of generator are determined,
designing rotor which desired output power is the output
power of the generator with rated output voltage divided by
0 efficiency of the generator.
300 500 700 900
Cpmax
Rotational speed, rpm

Figure 6. Matching of turbine and generator Power coefficient

V. DESIGN METHOD FOR THE OPTIMAL MATCHING OF

ROTOR AND GENERATOR
For the wind turbine system without optimal power Tip speed ratio
controller, the most important factor influencing system’s Output power
efficiency is the matching of rotor and generator, which is also
Rotational speed

described as tip speed ratio sometimes. But, how to design V1

wind speed, m/s

V1
wind turbines with optimal matching of rotor and generator? V2
For the wind turbine system in this paper, as an example, V2
if we choose a generator with the output power as same as the
“maximum output power” as shown in Fig. 3, the wind turbine V3 rotor
(no controller) will operate at maximum efficiency. The loss on V3 generator
the controller will be unnecessary.
The objective of design for optimal matching of rotor and
generator is wind turbine can operate at constant tip speed ratio Figure 7. Desired rotational speed and output power
when the wind speed is lower than rated value. For operating at
VI. CONCLUSION
constant tip speed ratio, the desired rotational speed of rotor is
proportional to wind speed, Among the factors influencing the output power of the wind
turbine system the tip speed ratio is very important. The
optimal power controlling is to control wind turbine operating
at optimal tip speed ratio and generating maximum power. But
inaccuracy of the controlling will introduce unnecessary loss
for the system. For the wind turbine without optimal power [2]
controller, the matching of rotor and generator determines the
running tip speed ratio and the output power. So the optimal [3]
matching of rotor and generator is very important. Design
[4]
methods for the optimal matching of rotor and generator are
proposed through (1), (2) and Fig. 7. For generator and rotor, if
one of them has been chosen or designed, some calculations [5]
will be needed to provide basement for designing or choosing
another.
[6]
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
The authors would like to thank Wang Yajun, Zhu Yinghui, [7]
Zhang Jian for their help in building the experimental rig.
[8]
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