Types of Wind Turbine

Horizontal axis wind turbine

Vertical axis wind turbine

Horizontal Axis wind turbine

Most common type of wind turbine and is
much similar to that of a windmill.
The blades or propeller are in such a way
that rotates in a horizontal axis.
Horizontal axis wind turbine(HAWT) have
the main rotor shaft or generator at the top of
the tower and are pointed to the wind.
small HAWTs rotor or generator are pointed
by a simple wind vane to the wind while
large use the sensors.
The tail or nacelle turn the HAWTs to the
direction of wind and is very functional.
the nose is very streamlined as to reduce the

blades

tail(yaw)

nose
generator

tower

Horizontal Axis wind turbine

The no of blades on HAWTs depend on the
function of wind turbine.
wind turbine with larger blades have high ratio of
utilization of the wind and a high torque.
while wind turbine with fewer blades do also
have the high ratio of utilization of the wind but
the starting rotor speed should be high.
Generally,HAWTs with fewer blades are prefered
because of its light weight and considerable
efficiency.

Advantages and Disadvantages of HAWTs

Why to use HAWTs?????
The HAWTs have higher wind speeds and
have high ratio of utilization of wind .
If used wisely i.e. if HAWTs with fewer
blades are used it will provide us the
greater efficiency than any other HAWTs.
The tail or nacelle helps to give full
rotation of the blades by changing it to the
direction of wind, specially when HAWTs
are in high altitude and turbulence of wind
is high.
It is very cheaper than vertical axis wind
turbine.

Why to avoid HAWTS?????

This type of turbine cant work with backwind type of
air.Though some modification are made the efficiency
decreases significantly.
It is difficult access the generators for repairs in case of
failure or malfunctioning.

Vertical Axis wind turbine

Vertical axis wind turbine(VAWT) have the
blades which rotates in vertical axis.
VAWTs are installed on the base of the
ground.
The rotor shaft is along vertical direction
and doesnt need to be pointed into the wind
as that of HAWT.
The generator is placed fixed on the ground.
The guy wire is tied to the ground to make
the VAWTs stable.
The rotor speed is low as it is placed on the
ground where the wind speed is low.

Vertical Axis wind turbine

VAWTs have 50% of the increase speed when
installed on the rooftop or a certain height.
The aerodynamic brakes give smooth rotation
and reduce the vibrations of VAWT system
whenever high turbulence occurs.
The strut helps to fix the blades to move laterally
during rotation of VAWTs.
The VAWTs are easy to maintain and repair
during malfunctioning.

Advantages and disadvantages of VATWs

Why do we need VAWTs?????
wind turbine doesnt need to be pointed to the
wind so the yaw mechanism as that of HAWT
does not required.
This can be effective wherever the wind
direction is highly variable and the wind is very
highly turbulent.
VAWTs installation are very easy and quick
since they are basically fixed on the ground.

Why we avoid to VAWTs?????

It generally create a drag when rotating into the
wind.
The speed of VAWT is low at lower altitude
Air flow at the ground might face a lot of
turbulence due to other interfering objects so it
may suffer a lot of vibrations creating sound and
hence may be malfunctioned easily.
It is difficult to install VAWT at the height.

Size of propellers
Depending upon the power generation the size of
propellers can be varied.
The size of the propellers can be modelled
mathematically by the equation

The variation of the size of propellers(its diameter

D) in above equation is related directly with the
power P provided as square of the diameter D and
the power P is related directly with the cube of
velocity.
The graph representing the variation of power with
diameter can be constructed as

Propeller

Graph of Power Vs. Diameter of propeller

Graph of power Vs. wind speed