Design of a 3 kW wind turbine generator with thin airfoil blades

Three blades of a 3 kW prototype wind turbine generator were designed with thin airfoil and a tip speed ratio of 3. The wind turbine has been controlled via two control methods: the variable pitch angle and by regulation of the field current of the generator and examined under real wind conditions. The characteristics of the thin airfoil, called “Seven arcs thin airfoil” named so because the airfoil is composed of seven circular arcs, are analyzed with the airfoil design and analysis program XFOIL. The thin airfoil blade is designed and calculated by blade element and momentum theory. The performance characteristics of the machine such as rotational speed, generator output as well as stability for wind speed changes are described. In the case of average wind speeds of 10 m/s and a maximum of 19 m/s, the automatically controlled wind turbine ran safely through rough wind conditions and showed an average generator output of 1105 W and a power coefficient 0.14.