Research and development of intelligent test equipment for vertical axis wind turbines

Wind tunnel test is one of the important methods to research the characteristics of vertical axis wind turbine (VAWT). To improve the test performance, intelligent test equipment for VAWTs is developed. The whole equipment is divided into three subsystem: support and adjustment, intelligent data-acquisition and analysis and loading system, each of them is analyzed and designed. An intelligent test bed is established, with which, the performance of a rotor is tested and analyzed. The results show that the test equipment is simple structured, convenient to manufactured, reliable to operate, and able to intelligently acquire the important data such as wind speed, rotor torque and power etc., which provides an effective way to study the performance of the wind turbines.