PERFORMANCE OF A SWINGING VANES VERTICAL AXIS SMALL WIND MILL

Abstract

A new design of a vertical axis wind rotor using two or three flat swinging vanes has been proposed and investigated experimentally in this work. Conventional horizontal axis small wind turbines are prohibitively costly and mostly based on imported sophisticated technology. This does not allow extensive use in our country for small scale, individual purpose. Apart from this, the efficient, high cost wind mills require comparatively large starting wind velocity, which is not available in many states in India. Considering au these, the development of an extremely simple vertical axis type wind mill using a new concept of a few swinging vanes has been undertaken. Its design is such that fabrication does not require any sophisticated technology; ordinary rural technology is sufficient to fabricate, install and maintain such a wind rotor. A small swinging vane wind rotor has been designed, fabricated, and its detailed performance have been obtained by actual testing. A rope brake dynamometer is used for measuring the torque at various wind velocities. The speed of the rotor has been measured by a stroboscope. The power is then calculated and power and torque coefficient are presented graphically. -N,aK nhd The present investigat` shows the results are highly encouraging that the swinging vane wind rotor is likely to be far superior than the conventional low speed vertical axis wind mills Considering both cost and performance.