Experimental investigation of the effects of the Reynolds number on the performance and near wake of a wind turbine

M. Bourhis, M. Pereira and F. Ravelet

Renewable Energy, 2023, vol. 209, issue C, 63-70

Abstract: Wind tunnel experiments provide worthwhile insights for designing efficient micro wind energy harvesters and large-scale wind turbines. As wind tunnel tests with large-scale wind turbines are expensive and not always feasible, most experiments are conducted with geometrically scaled rotors. Furthermore, micro-scale runners used for wind energy harvesting face the issue of lower efficiency than large turbines. A better understanding of Reynolds number effects induced by the downsizing of a turbine would help to design more efficient wind energy harvesters and more faithfully scaled experiments. This paper reports on Reynolds number effects on the performance and wake of micro-scale wind turbines. Wind turbines’ power and torque coefficients are measured in a wind tunnel for a wide range of Reynolds numbers. The wake axial velocity fields and the vortex core locations are collected for three Reynolds numbers using phase-averaged and phase-locked particle image velocimetry technique. The results emphasize that an increase in the Reynolds number leads to larger power coefficients, torque coefficients, and optimum tip-speed ratios. Higher Reynolds numbers induce wider wake expansion and a larger axial velocity defect. This quantitative analysis will contribute to a clearer understanding of the scaling effects and help to design more efficient wind energy harvesters.

Keywords: Micro-scale wind turbines; Reynolds number effects; Wind energy harvesting; Particle Image Velocimetry; Wake analysis (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0960148123003944
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

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:eee:renene:v:209:y:2023:i:c:p:63-70

DOI: 10.1016/j.renene.2023.03.093

Access Statistics for this article

Renewable Energy is currently edited by Soteris A. Kalogirou and Paul Christodoulides

More articles in Renewable Energy from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().