An Experimental Study on the Effects ofWinglets on the Wake and Performance of a ModelWind Turbine

Nicolas Tobin, Ali M. Hamed and Leonardo P. Chamorro
Additional contact information
Nicolas Tobin: Department of Mechanical Science and Engineering, University of Illinois, Urbana, IL 61801, USA
Ali M. Hamed: Department of Mechanical Science and Engineering, University of Illinois, Urbana, IL 61801, USA
Leonardo P. Chamorro: Department of Mechanical Science and Engineering, University of Illinois, Urbana, IL 61801, USA

Energies, 2015, vol. 8, issue 10, 1-18

Abstract: Wind tunnel experiments were performed to investigate the effects of downstream-facing winglets on the wake dynamics, power and thrust of a model wind turbine. Two similar turbines with and without winglets were operated under the same conditions. Results show an increase in the power and thrust coefficients of 8.2% and 15.0% for the wingletted case. A simple theoretical treatment of a two-turbine system suggests a possible positive tradeoff between increasing power and thrust coefficients at a wind farm scale. The higher thrust coefficient created a region of enhanced mean shear and turbulence in the outer portion of the wake. The winglets did not significantly change the tip-vortex strength, but higher levels of turbulence in the far wake decreased the tip-vortex strength. Because of the increased mean shear in the wingletted turbine’s wake, the Reynolds stresses were higher, potentially leading to a higher energy flux downstream.

Keywords: tip vortices; turbulent wake; wind energy; wind turbine; winglet (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: 2015
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (15)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/8/10/11955/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/8/10/11955/ (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:8:y:2015:i:10:p:11955-11972:d:57495

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 ().