Experiment No .

02
Objective:
To study the behaviour of wind turbines and determine power co-efficient.

Apparatus:
 Wind power apparatus
Wind Turbine:
A wind turbine is a machine that converts kinetic energy from the wind into
electricity. The blades of a wind turbine turn between 13 and 20 revolutions per minute,
depending on their technology, at a constant or variable velocity, where the velocity of
the rotor varies in relation to the velocity of the wind in order to reach greater efficiency.

Diagram:

Wind Turbine Parts and Functions

A wind turbine consists of five major and many auxiliary parts. The major parts are the tower,
rotor, nacelle, generator, and foundation or base. Without all of these, a wind turbine cannot
function

Foundation
The foundation is under the ground for the onshore turbines; it cannot be seen because it is
covered by soil. It is a large and heavy structured block of concrete that must hold the whole
turbine and the forces that affect it.
Tower
The tower in most modern turbines is round tubular steel of a diameter of 3–4 m (10–13 ft),
with a height of 75–110 m (250–370 ft), depending on the size of the turbine and its location.
The rule of thumb for a turbine tower is that it has the same height as the diameter of the
circle its blades make when rotating. Normally, the taller a turbine is, it is subject to more of
the wind with higher speed. This is because the farther we are from the ground, the faster the
wind (the wind does not have the same speed at various distances from the ground).

Rotor
The rotor is the rotating part of a turbine; it consists of (mostly) three blades and the central
part that the blades are attached to, the hub. A turbine does not necessarily have to have three
blades; it can have two, four, or another number of blades. But the three-blade rotor has the
best efficiency and other advantages.

Blades are not solid; they are hollow and are made of composite material to be light and
strong. The trend is to make them larger (for more power), lighter, and stronger. The blades
have the form of an airfoil (same as the wings of an airplane) to be aerodynamic. As well,
they are not flat and have a twist between their root and their tip. The blades can rotate up to
90° about their axes. This motion is called blade pitch.

Hub
The function of the hub is to hold the blades and make it possible for them to rotate with
respect to the rest of the turbine body.

Nacelle
The nacelle is housing on top of the tower that accommodates all the components that need to
be on a turbine top. There are quite a number of components for the proper and healthy
operation of a complicated electromechanical system that a turbine is. A major turbine part
among these components is the generator and the turbine shaft that transfers the harvested
power from wind to the generator through a gearbox.

The gearbox is a vital component of wind turbines; it resides in the nacelle. A gearbox
increases the main shaft speed from around 12–25 rpm* (for most of today’s turbines) to a
speed suitable for its generator. For this reason, the shaft on the generator side is called a
“high-speed shaft.”

Because a turbine must follow the wind and adjust its orientation to the wind direction, its
rotor needs to rotate with respect to the tower. This rotation is called yaw motion in which the
nacelle and the rotor revolve about the tower axis.
Generator
The generator is the component that converts the mechanical energy of the rotor, harnessed
from wind to electrical energy. A generator has the same structure as an electric motor.

Types of wind turbines

There are two basic types of wind turbines:

1. Horizontal-axis turbines
2. Vertical-axis turbines

The size of wind turbines varies widely. The length of the blades is the biggest factor in determining
the amount of electricity a wind turbine can generate. Small wind turbines that can power a single
home may have an electricity generating capacity of 10 kilowatts (kW). The largest wind turbines in
operation have electricity generating capacities of up to kilowatts (10 megawatts), and larger turbines
are in development. Large turbines are often grouped together to create wind power plants, or wind
farms, that provide power to electricity grids.

Horizontal-axis turbines are similar to propeller airplane engines

Horizontal-axis turbines have blades like airplane propellers, and they commonly have three
blades. The largest horizontal-axis turbines are as tall as 20-story buildings and have blades
more than 100 feet long. Taller turbines with longer blades generate more electricity. Nearly
all of the wind turbines currently in use are horizontal-axis turbines.
Vertical-axis turbines look like egg beaters
Vertical-axis turbines have blades that are attached to the top and the bottom of a vertical
rotor. The most common type of vertical-axis turbine—the Darrieus wind turbine, named
after the French engineer Georges Darrieus who patented the design in 1931—looks like a
giant, two-bladed egg beater. Some versions of the vertical-axis turbine are 100 feet tall and
50 feet wide. Very few vertical-axis wind turbines are in use today because they do not
perform as well as horizontal-axis turbines.

Co-Efficient of Power (Cp):

The coefficient of power of a wind turbine is a measurement of how efficiently the wind
turbine converts the energy in the wind into electricity. To find the coefficient of power at a
given wind speed, all you have to do is divide the electricity produced by the total energy
available in the wind at that speed. By now you already know how to calculate the amount of
electricity a wind turbine is producing, and you also know how to calculate the total power
available in a given area of wind. To find the coefficient of power at a given wind speed, all
you have to do is divide the electricity produced by the total energy available in the wind at
that speed.

Betz Limit:
Albert Betz was a German physicist who calculated that no wind turbine could convert more
than 59.3% of the kinetic energy of the wind into mechanical energy by turning a rotor. This
is known as the Betz Limit and is the theoretical maximum coefficient of power for any wind
turbine.

Field Current:
The current that is generated when the motor starts, is the amount that can be controlled and
depends upon the magnetic field developed by the rotor or we can say that on the speed of the
rotor.
Tip Speed Ratio:
The tip speed ratio is given by dividing the speed of the tips of the turbine blades by the
speed of the wind – for example, if a 20 mph wind is blowing on a wind turbine and the tips
of its blades are rotating at 80 mph, then the tip speed ration is 80/20 = 4.

Output Voltage:
This is the amount of voltage that is obtained at the output when the stator reaches its
maximum speed due to the wing speed.

Output Current:
The amount of current is again obtained at the output of the stator when it rotates at its
maximum speed so that we can easily find the amount of power that is being generated.

Procedure:
1. First of all set the apparatus according to the experiment performed.
2. Switch on the apparatus.
3. Turn on one fan by applying the field current.
4. The second fan starts rotating due to the wing energy that is forced by the rotor on it.
5. The amount of voltage and current is measured against the 2nd fan when it was rotated
at the maximum speed by applying the amount of load on it.
6. Output power pout is obtained by the product of current and voltage.
7. Coefficient of power is calculated by the given formula.
8. At the end radius of the blades is obtained to measure the tip speed ratio

1.8 Observation and Calculations:

SR# NO. OF BULB VOLTAGE(V) CURRENT(I) POWER=V*I

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Conclusions: