American Journal of Mechanical Engineering and Automation

2015; 2(1): 16-25

Published online January 30, 2015 (http://www.openscienceonline.com/journal/ajmea)

Effect of Number of Blades and Blade Chord Length

on the Performance of Darrieus Wind Turbine
Taher G. Abu-El-Yazied1, Ahmad M. Ali1, Mahdi S. Al-Ajmi2, Islam M. Hassan1, *
1
Design and Production Engineering Department, Faculty of Engineering, Ain Shams University, Cairo, Egypt
2
Department of Production Engineering Technologies, College of Technological Studies, PAAET, Kuwait

Email address
taher_abuelyazied@eng.asu.edu.eg (T. G. Abu-El-Yazied), dr.a.m.aly@amecath.com (A. M. Ali),
Islammohammed@eng.asu.edu.eg (I. M. Hassan)

To cite this article

Taher G. Abu-El-Yazied, Ahmad M. Ali, Mahdi S. Al-Ajmi, Islam M. Hassan. Effect of Number of Blades and Blade Chord Length on the
Performance of Darrieus Wind Turbine. American Journal of Mechanical Engineering and Automation. Vol. 2, No. 1, 2015, pp. 16-25.

Abstract
In this article we will go through some parameters like number of blades and blade chord length that influencing the efficiency
of straight Darrieus wind turbines. For this purpose, twelve models created with different number of blades and blade chord
lengths to study there effect on the performance of Darrieus wind turbine. Two dimensional Computational fluid dynamics
(CFD) analyses have been performed on a straight-bladed Darrieus-type rotor. After describing the computational model, a
complete campaign of simulations using K-ε turbulence model is chosen to perform the transient simulations and multiple
reference frame (MRF) model capability of a (CFD) solver is used to express the dimensionless form of power output of the
wind turbine as a function of the wind free stream velocity and the rotor’s rotational speed for a two, three, four and six-bladed
architecture characterized by a NACA 0021 airfoil. It was found that, max power coefficient and its corresponding tip speed
ratio were obtained at number of blades equal two and increase in power coefficient related to castelli wind turbine by 3.35%.
Increasing in blade chord length increase the power coefficient till a certain limit after which power coefficient was
dramatically decreased due to increase in solidity and decreasing corresponding tip speed ratio. Both torque ripple factor and
normal force on turbine blade were decreased with increasing of the number of blades and decreasing the blade chord length.
Keywords
Darrieus, Number of Blades, Blade Chord Length and Solidity

small scale power generation [6, 7].

1. Introduction and Background
It is a well-known that wind energy is very important as
one of clean energy resources, and wind rotors are the most
important of the wind energy. There are two different physical
principles to extract power from wind. The first of them is the
airfoil drag method, and the second is the airfoil lift principle.
The Darrieus turbine is the most common VAWT invented in
1931 [1-5]. On the basis of the second principle, a lot of
investigations aim to improve the performance of vertical axis
wind turbine like Darrieus and Savonius by increasing wind
velocity. The differences between a horizontal and a vertical
axis wind turbine are many, including their utilization:
horizontal axis wind turbine is popular for large scale power
generation, while the vertical axis wind turbine is utilized for
The Number of blade is a very important term in any kind
of turbine. Number of blades are affected the speed and
efficiency of turbine. The most commonly used wind turbines
use three blades [8].
Considerable improvements in the understanding of
VAWT can be achieved through the use of CFD. This paper
aims at studying the effect of changing the design parameters,
number of blades, blade chord length, and turbine solidity, on
the performance of the H-Darrieus vertical axis wind turbine
with fixed pitch angle through CFD simulations [9, 10].
2. Problem Formulation
The speed ratio (λ) is defined as:
 American Journal of Mechanical Engineering and Automation 2015;
201 2(1): 16-25
16 17

λ (1) C ! " (3)

# $
"

A relation between the azimuth angle (θ), the angle of attack %

C ! " (4)
(α) and the speed ratio (λ) has been obtained from the velocity # $
"
triangle in Figure 1,, this relation is as follow:
C ! " (5)
#$
α tan (2) "

C !
&'()
(6)
If the airfoil is set at an angle of incidence (α) in a fluid flow #$ *
"
and according to the standard airfoil theory, it will generate a
lift force (FL) normal to the free stream and a drag force (FD) in C C λ (7)
the direction of the free stream. These lift and drag forces can
Where CT and Cp are respectively the torque coefficient and
then be resolved to get the tangential force ce (FT) and the axial
the power coefficient, (P) is the mechanical power extracted,
force (FN) as shown in Figure 1.. The tangential force (FT) has
(ρ) is the air density, (A) is the turbine swept area, (R) is radius
the instantaneous responsibility of the torque and the power
of turbine and (V) is wind free stream velocity. Power
outputs from the Darrieus turbine.
Coefficient depends ds on wind speed due to aerodynamic
For a Darrieus rotor of height (H), a wind of incoming
complexities of blade designs. And CL and CD are respectively
velocity (V), the mechanical power (P) and the mechanical
Lift and drag coefficients.
torque on the axis of a Darrieus turbine can respectively be
write as follows:

Figure 1. Forces and velocities distribution on Darrieus rotor airfoil

a [3, 11, 12]

Between the many factors that influence the aerodynamic
behavior of the rotor, an important role is played by its solidity,
its means how much of the area that the turbine blades sweep
through (swept
swept area), is occupied by the turbines blades, and
defined as:
to verified turbulence model [11, 13]. Rotor azimuthal
position was identified by the angular coordinate of the
pressure center of blade No. 1 (set at 0.25c for NACA 0021
airfoil), starting between the 2nd and 3rd Cartesian plane
octants, as can be seen from Figure 2.
2

σ (8)

Where, (n) denotes the number of blades and (c) the chord
length.

3. Geometrical Models
The aim of the present work is to numerically analyze the
aerodynamic behavior of a two, three, four and six bladed
Darrieus VAWT operating at different angular velocities, for a
constant wind speed of 9 m/s. The main features and models
solidity of the tested
sted turbines models are summarized in Table
1.. Model 3 has the same dimensions of published
experimental Darrieus wind turbine results and it will be used Figure 2. Azimuthal coordinate of blade midsection’s center of pressure [11].
18 Taher G. Abu-El-Yazied et al.: Effect of Number of Blades and Blade Chord Length on the Performance of Darrieus Wind Turbine

Table 1. Main geometrical features of the tested models

Models
Features
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12
Drotor [mm] 1030
Hrotor [m] 1 (2D simulation)
Blade profile NACA 0021
c [mm] 85.8 128.7 85.8 170 85.8 170 64.35 85.8 170 42.9 250 300
Solidity σ 0.17 0.25 0.25 0.5 0.33 0.66 0.25 0.5 0.99 0.25 0.48 0.87
Number of blades(n) 2 2 3 3 4 4 4 6 6 6 2 3

Table 2. Mesh size for the tested models

Models
Features
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12
Number of
148888 155487 149125 177107 165969 191154 158166 185383 223009 161255 155955 179636
elements(n)
Blade Size Element
0.71
[mm]
Growth rate 1.1

square far-field being stationary and shaft field being

4. Description of the Numerical Flow stationary as shown in Figure 3. The far-field mesh which is of
Field hexahedral type is less dense as compared to hexahedral mesh
in the rotary zone.
Three separate zones are created, rotor zone being rotary,

Figure 3. Schema of rotor sub-grid area and open domain for the three bladed VAWT

Inlet was set as a velocity inlet, with a constant velocity

profile of 9 m/s, while outlet was set as a pressure outlet. Two
symmetry boundary conditions were used for the two side
walls. The appropriate size of the computational domain has
been investigated. A computational domain of increasing
dimensions (square domain of size, suitably normalized by the
rotor radius R, in this work, the ratio between the square
domain length and the rotor radius is 28, after different
domain sizes ranging from 20R to 60Rperformed for one
geometrical configuration “at TSR 2.62” as a domain size
independent test lead to a relative variation of the output
quantity below 0.5 %., by using Gambit 2.4 for modeling and
meshing and Ansys Fluent 14.5 for CFD simulation [13].
5. Discretization of the Numerical
Flow Field
All created meshes with the same grid size and growth
factor. Turbulence model used in this work is Realizable K-ɛ
Turbulence model with standard wall function. After
implementing simulation software we found that the y+ values
found in present work near all walls are around 40 which fall
within the recommended range [Best-practice CFD (30 < y+ <
300)]. Samples of 2-D mesh discretization of the tested
models shown in Figure 4and Figure 5 and setting mesh size to
neutralized its effect on the power coefficient is shown in
Table 2.
 American Journal of Mechanical Engineering and Automation 2015; 2(1): 16-25
Figure 4. Sample 2-D mesh discretization of the VAWT
Figure 5. Mesh for NACA 0021 blade section
6. Main Features of the Numerical
Simulations
A complete campaign of simulations, based on full RANS
unsteady calculations, was performed for a two, three, four
and six-bladed rotor architecture characterized by a NACA
0021 airfoil. The tip speed ratio (λ) was varied from a value of
λ=1.44 (which corresponds to an angular velocity of ω=25.1
rad/s) to λ=3.3 (which corresponds to an angular velocity of
ω=57.6 rad/s). These conditions correspond to a range of
blade Reynolds numbers from 2.69*104 to 1.05*105 for all
Twelve models in Table 1.
The blade Reynolds number for this work was defined as:
Re
# +
(9)
μ
The dynamic viscosity (µ) was assumed to be 1.78·10-5 Pa·s,
the density (ρ) was set to 1.225 kg/m3 and the free stream
velocity (V) was set to 9 m/s.
7. Numerical Solution
The effect of the turbulence model is verified and shown in
19
Figure 6. These results give a good agreement obtained
between experiments and present CFD for the target function,
Cp, when using the realizable k-ε turbulence model. Same
tendency has been observed for other studies, proving the
interest of this model for fast CFD simulations. This model is
usually recommended for rotating bodies. The realizable k-ε
model usually provides improved results for swirling flows
and flow involving separation when compared to the standard
k-ε model. The near-wall treatment relies on standard wall
functions. The present study involves the application of
SIMPLE scheme. Among several special discretization
schemes available in FLUENT, Least squares cell based
gradient with Standard pressure and second order upwind
scheme are found to be appropriate for the present study.
Simulation begins with continues with the second order, and
among several Transient formulation available second order
implicit are found to be appropriate for the present work.
Convergence criterion for the solution is set as 10-5. Currently,
our area of consideration is to determine the forces acting on
each of the three rotating airfoils and to obtain an optimum
value of tip speed ratio which gives the maximum power
output when wind passes the turbine at a speed of 9 m/s. The
two transport equations that need to be solved for this model
are for the kinetic energy of turbulence, k, and the rate of
dissipation of turbulence, ε [14]:
.(01) . . =6 .1
(783 9) ;< + @ + A1 − 7C (10)
.3 .56 .56 >? .56
.(0D) . . = .D D D"
+ (783 C) ;< + 6 @ +F A1 − F 7 (11)
.3 .56 .56 >E .56 1 1
The quantities C1, C2, σk, and se are empirical constants.
The quantity Gk appearing in both equations is a generation
term for turbulence. It contains products of velocity gradients,
and also depends on the turbulent viscosity:
20 Taher G. Abu-El-Yazied et al.: Effect of Number of Blades and Blade Chord Length on the Performance of Darrieus Wind Turbine

.G6 .GH .GH

A1 <3 ( + ) (12) Figure 7, Figure 8 and Figure 9, and with blade chord length
.5H .56 .56 170 mm as shown in Figure 10, Figure 11 and Figure 12.
Other source terms can be added to Equations (11) and (12)
to include other physical effects such as swirl, buoyancy or
compressibility, for example. The turbulent viscosity is
derived from both k and ɛ, and involves a constant taken from
experimental data, Cm, which has a value of 0.09:
1"
<3 7F= (13)
D

All values of setting parameters for fluent software, used in

the present work were shown in Table 3.

8. Results and Discussion

Figure 7. Power coefficient as a function of tip speed ratio for models with
The following results represent the values of the power chord equal 85.8 mm
coefficient of the analyzed models mentioned in Table 1 as a
function of the tip speed ratio, for an incident wind speed of 9
m/s. The peak power coefficients for the analyzed rotor
configurations are presented in Table 4, using the power
coefficient of the verified three-bladed turbine as a reference,
a percentage of maximum performance calculated for other
configurations. And a percentage of the value of tip speed
ratio to obtain the peak power is calculated for other
configurations as shown in Table 4.

Figure 8. Effect of solidity and number of blades on power coefficient at

c=85.6 mm

Figure 6. Verification of computational model, compared to experimental and

CFD results for a Darrieus turbine [13]

8.1. The Effect of Turbine Parameters on Figure 9. Effect of solidity and number of blades on TSR that obtained
Power Coefficient maximum power coefficient at c=85.6 mm

8.1.1. Effect of Number of Blades

Numerical analysis was performed in order to understand
the effect of blade number and solidity on the behavior of a
straight-bladed vertical-axis wind turbine. It was found that,
maximum power coefficient was increased with increasing in
Solidity and number of blades for number of blade lower than
3.And Maximum power coefficient was decreased with
increasing in Solidity and number of blades for blade number
upper than 3. Also it was found that, corresponding tip speed
ratio obtained this maximum power coefficient was decreased
with increase solidity and number of blades. These analyses
Figure 10. Power coefficient as a function of tip speed ratio for models with
obtained with blade chord length equal 85.6 as shown in blade chord equal to 170 mm
 American Journal of Mechanical Engineering and Automation 2015; 2(1): 16-25 21

Figure 12. Effect of solidity and number of blades on λ obtained max power
Figure 11. Effect of solidity and number of blades on max power coefficient coefficient with chord length equal 170 mm
with chord length equal 170 mm

Table 3. Values of setting parameters for fluent software

Solution type Sliding mesh

Transient 2nd order implicit
Steady state pseudo-transient
Turbulence Realizable k-ε (standard wall function)
Pressure 2nd order
Momentum 2nd order
ε 2nd order
k 2nd order
P-V Coupling (steady state) Coupled
P-V Coupling (Transient) Simple

Table 4. Values of peak power and corresponding tip speed ratios with respect to model 3

Model no. n λCp,max Cp,max σ %Cp,max % λCp,max

1 2 3.5 0.289 0.17 -7.67 33.59
2 2 2.62 0.3235 0.25 3.35 0
3 3 2.62 0.313 0.25 0 0
4 3 2.03 0.319 0.5 1.92 -22.52
5 4 2.62 0.274 0.33 -12.46 0
6 4 1.67 0.273 0.66 -12.78 -36.26
7 4 2.8 0.205 0.25 -34.5 6.87
8 6 2.32 0.217 0.5 -30.67 -11.45
9 6 1.67 0.214 0.99 -31.63 -36.26
10 6 2.8 0.022 0.25 -92.97 6.87
11 2 2.03 0.29 0.48 -7 -22.52
12 3 1.43 0.249 0.87 -20.45 -45.41

8.1.2. Combined Effect of Number of Blades

and Chord Length at Same Solidity

Figure 14. Tip speed ration for maximum Cp as a function of number of

blades at same solidity 0.25

It was found “as in Figure 13” that; maximum power

coefficient was increased with increasing solidity and
Figure 13. Power coefficient as a function of tip speed ratio for models with increasing blade chord length at same number of blades as
solidity equal to 0.25 shown in Figure 14. Also it was found that, corresponding tip
22 Taher G. Abu-El-Yazied et al.: Effect of Number of Blades and Blade Chord Length on the Performance of Darrieus Wind Turbine

speed ratio obtained this maximum power coefficient was

decreased with increasing solidity and increasing chord length
at same blade numbers as shown in Figure 15.

Figure 18. Maximum Cp as a function of solidity at same number of blades

The velocity distributions obtained through numerical

analysis for some rotor configurations are given in figures
Figure 15. Maximum Cp as a function of number of blades at same solidity from Figure 19 to Figure 22. Figures from Figure 23 to Figure
0.25 26 display the distribution of the instantaneous power
coefficient as a function of time for the rotor blades and for
8.1.3. Effect of Blade Chord Length optimum TSR for some models, showing the contribution of
It was found “as in Figure 16” that; corresponding tip speed each blade to overall rotor performance. Three peaks or two
ratio obtained maximum power coefficient was decreased peaks according to number of blades of the instantaneous
with increasing solidity and increasing chord length at same power coefficient can be seen.
blade numbers as shown in Figure 19. Also it was found that,
maximum power coefficient was increased with increasing
solidity and increasing blade chord length at same number of
blades as shown in Figure 18.But after certain value of solidity
“as in number of blades equal 4” power coefficient was
decreased was increasing blade chord length and increasing
solidity.

Figure 19. Velocity distributions for the rotor at TSR 2.62 on rotor and around
blade for model 2

Figure 16. Power coefficient as a function of tip speed ratio for models with
number of blades equal to 2

Figure 20. Velocity distributions for the rotor at TSR 2.03 on rotor and around
blade for model 4

Figure 17. Tip speed ration for maximum Cp as a function of solidity at same Figure 21. Velocity distributions for the rotor at TSR 2.62 on rotor and around
number of blades blade for model 5
 American Journal of Mechanical Engineering and Automation 2015; 2(1): 16-25
Figure 22. Velocity distributions for the rotor at TSR 2.32 on rotor and around
blade for model 8
Figure 23. Value of instantaneous Cp as a function of azimuth angle θ for
model 2 and the Betz’s limit at TSR 2.62
Figure 24. Value of instantaneous Cp as a function of azimuth angle θ for
model 4 and the Betz’s limit at TSR 2.03
Figure 25. Value of instantaneous Cp as a function of azimuth angle θ for
model 5 and the Betz’s limit at TSR 2.62
23
Figure 26. Value of instantaneous Cp as a function of azimuth angle θ for
model 8 and the Betz’s limit at TSR 2.32
8.2. The Effect of Turbine Parameters on
Torque Ripple
It was found that, torque ripple factor for wind turbine was
decreased with increasing number of blades and increasing
blade chord length as shown in Figure 27.
Figure 27. Comparison of torque ripple factor for different number of blades
models, at various TSR
8.3. The Effect of Turbine Parameters on
Normal Force on Blade
Numerical analysis was performed in order to understand
the effect of blade number and blade chord length on normal
force on turbine blade. Aerodynamic radial force on the blade
for the tip speed ratio of peak power coefficient (the force is
considered as negative if the airfoil is pushed towards the rotor
axis).
Figure 28. Dynamic normal forces as a function of airfoil position for 3blade
h-rotor wind turbines at λCp, max with same solidity
24 Taher G. Abu-El-Yazied et al.: Effect of Number of Blades and Blade Chord Length on the Performance of Darrieus Wind Turbine

ratio for maximum coefficient decrease so after certain

point increasing in blade chord length minimize power
coefficient.
It was found that, normal force “radial component” was
decreased with increasing number of blades and
decreasing chord length at same solidity. With regard to
the radial component of the aerodynamic forces, an
increase in blade number brings to a decrease of this
force, which is mush desirable from a structural
perspective, but was penalized as much as efficiency is
important.
It was found that, torque ripple factor for wind turbine
Figure 29. Dynamic normal forces as a function of airfoil position for 3blade was decreased with increasing number of blades and
h-rotor wind turbines at λCp, max with number of blades equal 3 increasing blade chord length.
The combined effect of aerodynamic radial force and
centrifugal force on the structural behavior of the blade should
be investigating in the future.

Nomenclature
A projected area of rotor (DH), m2
Cp power coefficient
CT torque coefficient
C blade chord, m
D turbine diameter (2R), m
FL lift force, N
FD drag force, N
FT tangential force, N
Figure 30. Dynamic normal forces as a function of airfoil position for 3blade FN axial force, N
h-rotor wind turbines at λCp, max with blade chord length equal 170 mm FR resultant force, N
H blade height, m
It was found that, normal force was decrease with N rotational speed of rotor, rpm
increasing blade number and decreasing chord length at same n number of blades
solidity as shown in Figure 28. And normal force on blade was P output power (2πNT/60), W
increased with increasing solidity and increasing chord length R radius of turbine, m
at same number of blades as shown in Figure 29. θ azimuth angle, (˚)
Also it was found that, normal force on blade was increased ω angular speed, 1/s
with decreasing solidity and decreasing number of blades at µ Viscosity (kg/m s)
same blade chord length as shown in Figure 30. V [m/s] unperturbed wind velocity at computational
domain entrance
9. Conclusion w [m/s] relative wind velocity at blade position
k kinetic energy of turbulence
The following conclusions are drawn on the basis of results ε the rate of dissipation of turbulence
obtained from Numerical analysis was performed to Rec [-] blade Reynolds numbers
understand the effect of number of blades and blade chord TRF torque ripple factor
length on the behavior of a straight-bladed vertical-axis wind T output torque, Nm
turbine as shown in previous results: u peripheral velocity of the blade, m/s
The numerically expected peak of power coefficient α angle of attack, (˚)
dropped with the increase of rotor solidity, while it σ solidity, (nc/2R) [-]
moved to lower tip speed ratio. Actually, larger number λ TSR tip-speed ratio,
of blades allowed to reach the maximum power
coefficient for lower angular velocities, but was
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