The Influence of Winglet Pitching on the Performance of a Model Wind Turbine: Aerodynamic Loads, Rotating Speed, and Wake Statistics

Emmanuvel Joseph Aju, Dhanush Bhamitipadi Suresh and Yaqing Jin
Additional contact information
Emmanuvel Joseph Aju: Department of Mechanical Engineering, The University of Texas at Dallas, Richardson, TX 75080, USA
Dhanush Bhamitipadi Suresh: Department of Mechanical Engineering, The University of Texas at Dallas, Richardson, TX 75080, USA
Yaqing Jin: Department of Mechanical Engineering, The University of Texas at Dallas, Richardson, TX 75080, USA

Energies, 2020, vol. 13, issue 19, 1-15

Abstract: The objective of this study is to investigate the influence of winglet pitching as an aero-brake on the performance of a model wind turbine by wind tunnel experiments. Time-resolved particle image velocimetry, force sensor, and datalogger were used to characterize the coupling between wake statistics, aerodynamic loads, and rotation speed. Results highlighted that, for a winglet with 4 % of the rotor diameter length, the increase of its pitching angle can significantly reduce the turbine rotation speed up to ∼28% and thrust coefficient of ∼20%. The winglet pitching induced minor influence on the velocity deficit in the very near wake regions, while its influence on accelerating the wake recovery become clear around three diameters downstream the turbine rotor. The turbulence kinetic energy exhibited a distinctive increase under large pitching angles in the near wake region at the turbine hub height due to the strong vertical flow fluctuations. Further investigation on the spectra of wake velocities revealed that the pitching of winglet can suppress the high-pass filtering effects of turbines on wake fluctuations; such large-scale turbulence facilitated the flow mixing and accelerated the wake transport.

Keywords: winglet pitching; rotating speed; wake statistics; wind tunnel experiment (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q Q0 Q4 Q40 Q41 Q42 Q43 Q47 Q48 Q49 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/13/19/5199/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/13/19/5199/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jeners:v:13:y:2020:i:19:p:5199-:d:424109

Access Statistics for this article

Energies is currently edited by Ms. Agatha Cao

More articles in Energies from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().