The Small Wind Turbine Characteristics

Test
Gu Yujie1, Xie Da1, Zhang Yanchi2, Zhang Ming1, Li Jingxing3
1 Department of Electrical Engineering ,Shanghai Jiao Tong University, China
2 Department of Electrical Engineering ,Shanghai Dianji University, China
3 Zhejiang Ruihua Group, China
E-mail: xieda@sjtu.edu.cn

Abstract — A small wind turbine characteristics test
platform is designed and realized. It includes low speed
opening wind tunnel, and data acquisition systems. The
wind tunnel with 3.5m caliber is designed into direct-action
wind tunnel, and its experiment sement is circular section.
Multi-fans are adopted to provide wind energy in the power
segment, which improves wind flow effective and reliability
after wind flow pass through a celluar device. The data
acquisition systems collect and deal with wind speed, wind
turbine rotation rate, output voltage and current by data
board. The test results for the small wind turbine prove the
platform can meet testing requests of small wind turbine
characteristics tests, which helps students to understand
new energy using and enlarge knowledge.
Key words — new energy ;direct-action wind tunnel; data
acquisition systems, a small wind turbine
I. INTRODUCTION
wind energy is an ancient energy souce. To develop
and use wind energy as the auxiliary energy supply has
important economic value as well as far-reaching social
benefits. As a device using the kinetic energy of wind to
generate electricity, wind turbine’s aerodynamic
performance and power output characteristics are
important elements of the development of the wind
turbines. The wind tunnel test is the main mean to study
the external characteristics of wind turbines.
In recent years,with the development of the wind
and photovoltaic hybrid techology, small wind turbines
have been applied in more and more areas[1]-[2]. The
extension of small wind turbines needs themselves to
meet higher requirements on the aspects of low wind
speed power generation, low noise, high reliability and
so on. Meanwhile,wind power technology has now
become a new direction in electrical engineering field,
the electrical engineering students need to learn some
knowledge about new energy and new technology.
Therefore, to research and develop a kind of small wind
turbine characteristics test platform can not only facilitate
the study of small wind units,but aslo provide students
with the experiments for knowledge expansion so as to
help them to broadon their horizons and enhance their
interests on their majors.
At present, the platform designed to test the external
characteristics of small wind turbines is still relatively
rare. It is worth mentioning that wind tunnel B1/K2
platform in the Renewable Energy Laboratory in the new
energy experimental demonstration base of Inner
Mongolia University in Inner Mongolia Autonomous
Region [3]. Its low speed wind tunnel is a direct-action
wind tunnel, which is composed of an open segment and
a closed segment. Its data acquisition system contains a
special computer with the automated wind turbinesn
testing program developed on LabWindows/CVI
platform. In this paper, aimed at the external
characteristics test of small wind turbines ,a test platform
including a direct-action low speed wind tunnel and a
data acquisition device is desighed for the research on
starting a small wind turbine wind speed, rated wind
speed, the power output characteristics , the aerodynamic
characteristics and so on. Students’ experiments and the
platform operation have demonstrated that the test
platform design can reach the intended target. It is
economical, practical, simple, convenient and more
suitable for testing external characteristics of small wind
turbines, which can greatly enhance the electrical
engineering students’ interests in their major and
accordingly can become an extracurricular base for
students who have spare capacity for studies.
 II. DESIGN OF LOW SPEED WIND TUNNEL
Low speed wind tunnels have two types: low-speed
direct-action wind tunnels and low-speed closed circuit
wind tunnels. As the flow of a direct-action wind tunnel
through the experiment segment go into the atmosphere
directly, the flow in the experiment segment is
susceptible to outside influence,while the low-speed
closed circuit wind tunnel has better flow quality since
the flow in low-speed closed circuit wind tunnel forms a
circulation loop inside the cave without outside
interference. Compared with low-speed closed circuit
wind tunnel, the area thar the direct-action wind tunne
covers is smaller and the investment it nees is less [4].
According to request of the external characteristics
test of a small wind turbine, the wind tunnel was
designed as a direct-action wind tunne which is of small
footprint, and of low investment ,and is suitable for
indoor use. The overall structure of the wind tunnel is
shown in Figure 1. The wind tunnel was divided into
five parts: stability segment, contraction segment,
experiment segment, diffuser segment and power
segment.
Fig 1 wind tunnel structure
A. Design of experiment segment
1). Cross section design
Generally,Wind tunnel’s cross-section have three
shapes:oval, round and square. In the case of similar
stability segments and the same contraction ratio, the
flow with the elliptical cross section is most uniform, the
secon is round, square followed by; In terms of
interference from the wall, the elliptical cross section has
minimal disruption on lifting action of vane, followed by
a square , round is the last; On the basis of the ease of
manufacturing, the elliptical cross section is the most
difficult for its shape is difficult to make. The most easy
to make is the square cross section [5]. Taking all these
factors above, manufacturing conditions and technical
requirements into consideration, the cross sections of the
stability segment and the experiment segment of the
wind tunnel were set as circular cross sections in order to
facilitate the experimental model installation and project
observation.
2). Diameter design
Roughly the cost of wind tunnel test section is
proportional to the cube of diameter, and its drive power
is proportional to the square, so, to minimize the
diameter is of great significance. However, the size of the
wind tunnel is mainly determined by the Reynolds
number that a experiments requires. From the view of a
model experiment, Reynolds number is always be
expceted as high as possible, so the hole needs to be very
substantial [6]-[7]. Considering these factors, the
diameter of the experiment section was set to 3.5 meters
so that the experiments can be carried out for testing
small wind turbines of which wind wheel is 1-2.5 meters
in diameter.
B. Cellular device Design
Cellular device generally is composed of many
small parallel channels of which cross sections are square,
round or hexagonal, etc, shaped like a honeycomb, so it
is called cellular device. The role of cellular devices is to
steer flow to make it parallel to the tunnel axis [1]. The
flow of large-scale vortex is divided into small eddies by
cellular devices so as to help accelerate the vortex decay.
moreover, the cellular channels and the air-flow friction
will also help improve the air flow velocity distribution.
In this paper, the cellular device was designed as a square
mesh grid placed in the front stability section, to weaken
the kinetic energy of the irregular flow and to improve
flow quality so as to make it stable and uniform. Cellular
devices wre made of thin iron plates cross-connected
with each other, of which the shape is accurate, stable,
and the manufacturing is easy [8].
C. Power section design
Power segment is a cave with the driven fans of
which the role is to drive air flow inside the wind tunnel
and to continuously add energy to the flow so as to
establish steady flow in a test section. Dynamic section
of low speed wind tunnel is constituted by the following
general components: dynamic segment shell, fans, fan
drive motor, rectifier. Rectifier contains a cowling,
pre-twisted films or oriented films (it’s in the front of the
fans , between the cowling and shell), stop twist film
twist or reverse twist film (it’s in the back of the fans,
between the cowling and shell) [5]. Motors can be
installed in the fairing and can also be installed outside
the cave. There were nine wind turbines used to provide
wind energy in the power section, which were arranged
in 3×3 matrix form. Compared to the air flow provided
by single wind turbine, this arrangment could not only
reduce the air flow vortexs to achieve the desired effect
of the DC wind tunnel but aslo had better wind flow
results after throuh the cellular device because air flow
provided by multi-wind turnbines had more but smaller
wind flow vortexs and each vortex had a certain coupling.
In addition, because of the wind tunnel with multi-fans, Fig 2 Block diagram of data acquisition

the normal experiment won’t be disturbed in the case of

B. Measurement of experimental data
the failure of one of wind turbines which therefore can be
A YYT-2000 inclined-tube micro-manometer and a
in maintenance after completion of the experiment,and
Pitot tube of which correction factor is 1.03 was used in
this can greatly improve reliability of the system.
the experiment to test wind speeds. The basic principle is
Three-phase induction motor with the capacity of 5KW
to use pitot tube to convert kinetic energy into
was adopted, which used frequency converter to regulate
pressure,therefore flow rate can be measured by height
power frequency so as to adjust the speed of the
difference of liquid level,shown as Fig3.This
synchronous motor. Frequency control has a wild
measurement device is simple to produce, easy to install
regulation range and good glidingproperty[9].
and operate,and have high measurement precision. Wind
III. EXPETIMENTS ON THE TEST PLATFORM speed can be calculated as below:
In order to study the starting small wind turnbine （1）
⎛ ρ' ⎞
speed, rated wind speed, power output characteristics, the v = ϕ 2 g ⎜⎜ − 1⎟⎟Δh
aerodynamic properties, the data of wind speeds, fan
⎝ρ ⎠
speeds, output currents and voltages.must be collected in In the formula: ϕ is the flow coefficient
the experiment. (ϕ = 0.97 ~ 0.99 ); ρ is air densiy（kg/m3）; ρ ' is
A. Design of data Acquisition System
liquid density in the tube（kg/m3）; Δh is the height
Data acquisition system includes the wind speed difference of liquid level（m）.
measurement module, the wind turbine rotation speed
measurement modules, the voltage and current
measurement modules, the data acquisition card, and the
PC machine [10]-[11]. Data acquisition schematic
diagram is shown in Figure 2
The changes of wind speed will cause changes in
wind speed generator, which will make the outputs of the
three-phase currents and voltages instable, and the error
of direct measurement of three-phase currents and
voltages will be relatively large. Therefore, three-phase
rectifier bridge is connected into the output circuit in the Fig.3 Schematic of wind speed measurement
experiment to convert three-phase alternating currents The wind turbine rotation speed can be measured by
into direct currents and errors will be reduced by a laser velocimetry.
measuring DC currents and voltages. The load of DC The measured wind speeds of wind turbine were
side are two slider-type rheostats of whichi the largest outputed as the 4-20mA analog signals, whichcan be
resistance is 30Ω and the maximum allowable current is directly collected by the data acquisition card.
10A ,and another two slider-type rheostats of largest
resistance 50Ω, the maximum allowable current 5A.
C. Measurement of output power The results show that the average starting wind
By measuring the DC current and DC voltage of the speed of the test unit is 1.13m/s.
load, considering the loss of diode rectifier bridge, The B. The maximum output power test of the wind turbine
output power of the wind turbine P can be calculated
Let the win wheel free and windward at the
as the formula 2 shown..
beginning.Start the wind tunnel and keep the wind speed
P = V × I + 1 .5 × I （2）
at the intended speed,then regulate the load until the
In the formula: I is the load current (A); V is
output power of the unit can reach the maximum.After
the load voltage (V).
the wind wheel is running steadily, collect the output
After the measurement of the wind speed v (m/s)
voltages, output currents and the maximum output power
and the wind turbine rotation speed n (r/s), tip speed
of the units. As the cut-in wind speed of the wind turbine
ratio can be calculated as follows:
is 1.8m/s,the test range of wind speed should be 2m/s～
2πRn （3） 14m/s,the Interval of two adjacent experimental wind
λ= speeds is 1m / s. Figure 4 is the curve of the maximum
60v
output power of the wind turbine changing in wind
In the formula: R is the radius of the wind wheel. speed,based on experimental data.
In order to study the power output characteristics

out put power (W)

and Aerodynamic characteristics of wind turbines, power
coefficient should be calculated :

2P （4） 400

CP =
ρs w v 3 300

In the formula: s w is the wind wheel swept area

200

（m2）; ρ the air density （kg/m3）.

100

0
IV. THE EXPERIMENTAL RESULTS OF TEST 0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14
wi nd s peed (m/s)
PLATFORM
To prove the usefulness of this test platform,we Fig 4 Maximum output power curve of the wind turbine

used the platform to test a small wind turbine with the
capacity of 450W. The test was carried out with
reference to GB/T 19068.3-2003 “off-grid wind turbine
generator system Part 3: Wind tunnel test method".
A. Starting wind speed test of the wind wheel
The unit has no load. Let the win wheel free and
windward at the beginning.Then start the wind tunnel,
gradually increase the speed, record wind speeds
everytime the wind wheel rotate a circle Repeat these
steps three times, take the arithmetic average of three
experimental records as starting speed of the wind wheel.
Experimental data is shown in Table I .
TABEL I
STARTING WIND SPEED DATA
Times 1 2 3
C. Power output characteristics
Let the win wheel free and windward at the
beginning.Start the wind tunnel and keep the wind speed
at the intended speed,then regulate the load on the basis
of tip speed ratios. After the wind wheel is running
steadily, collect the output voltages, output currents and
the maximum output power of the units. According to the
experimental data ,draw curves of the output power of
the unit changing in tip speed ratio under the different
wind speeds,as Fig5 shown.
In fig5,curves B~N seperately stands for the output
power curves at different tip speed ratios. the range of
wind speed is 2m/s～14m/s,the Interval of two adjacent
experimental wind speeds is 1m / s.

Experimental data 1.1m/s 1.1m/s 1.2m/s

1 3
V = ∑Vn = 1.13 （m/s）
n n =1
(5)
 wind speed is 2m/s～13m/s,the Interval of two adjacent
out put power (W)
400 experimental wind speeds is 1m/s. According to the
B
350 C experimental data,calculate the maximum output power
D
300 E coefficient characteristics using the formula 4, then
F
G
curves of the power coefficients changing in tip speed
250
H ratio at the different wind speeds, whicn is shown as Fig
200
I
J 7.
K
150
L
M
100
N
0.30
50 D
0.28
E
0.26
0 F

Cp
3 4 5 6 7 0.24 G
t i p s peed r at i o 0.22 H
I
0.20
J
0.18 K
Fig 5 the output power curves
0.16 L
M
0.14
N
0.12

D. Maximum power coefficient characteristics 0.10

0.08

0.06
0.30
0.04
Cp
3 4 5 6 7t i p s peed r at i o
0.28

0.26
Fig 7 power coefficient characteristics curves
0.24

0.22
V. CONCLUSION

0.20
0.18
2 4 6 8
Fig 6 the maximu power coefficient characteristics curve
Let the win wheel free and windward at the
beginning. Start the wind tunnel and keep the wind speed
at the intended speed, then regulate the load on the basis
of tip speed ratios. After the wind wheel is running
steadily, collect the output voltages, output currents and
the maximum output power of the units. the range of
wind speed is 2m/s～13m/s,the Interval of two adjacent
experimental wind speeds is 1m / s. According to the
experimental data,calculate the maximum output power
coefficient characteristics using the formula 4, then draw
This platform can be used to carry out the
experiments of the external characteristics test of small
10 12 14 wind turbines , which can measure the basic data of small
wi nd s peed (m/s)
wind turbines for the experiments of the external
characteristics test. Tip speed, power parameters,
mechanical power of wind turbines can be calculated and
the curves of the power output characteristics and the
aerodynamic characteristics can be drawn by using the
experimental data. This platform can provide electrical
engineering students with wind power experiments,
which is of great practical significance to broaden the
students knowledge.
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