Fluid flow analysis and design of a shroud for wind turbine using ANSYS

It is known that diffuser increases the output power in small-scale wind turbine. However method to design the diffuser has not been reported in detail. Therefore fluid flow analysis was done using ANSYS (a program for CAE) [1] to design the diffuser (shroud called in this study) for a prototype wind turbine. Simulation result serves to determine the blades position as well as to optimize the structure inside the cylindrical shroud. Generation test result proves that the output power increased up to 3 times for the test machine by the shroud. This method of design is applied to another test machine with tapering shroud and the result is briefly discussed.