An Experimental Study for Efficient Design Parameters of a Wind Power Tower

Abstract

Wind power tower (WPT) has been used to augment the performance of vertical axis wind turbine (VAWT). However, the performance of the WPT depends on several design parameters, such as inner and outer radius, or number of guide walls. Therefore, an experimental study was conducted to investigate efficient design parameters on the WPT. A wind tunnel was utilized and its test section dimension was 2m height and 2.2m width. One story model of the WPT was manufactured with seven guide walls and a VAWT was installed within the WPT. Three different sizes of guide walls were applied to test with various design parameters. The power coefficients were measured along the azimuthal direction in a state of equal inlet velocity in order to compare its performance relatively. The experimental results showed that the gap between the inner radius of the WPT and the rotating radius of the VAWT was a major parameter to improve the performance of VAWT within the WPT.