Experimental Study on Performance of Low Speed Wind Turbine for Application in Malaysia

Abstract

Voluminous advancement that has been made in the last few decades in developing Complementary Metal Oxide Semiconductor (CMOS) components has drastically impacted the power requirements of portable wireless electronic devices or even of small consumed-power electrical appliances. Reduction in power consumption requirement together with the wind condition in Malaysia has opened the opportunity of developing environmental energy based power sources that can utilize locally available wind to generate sufficient magnitude of electrical power required for charging the commonly utilized wireless electronic devices. Motivated by this emerging need and the opportunity to demonstrate self-sustainable systems, this research work in this article will cover the design, fabrication and performance evaluation of low speed wind turbines. A test rig is established and be placed in the suction-typed subsonic wind tunnel available at Faculty of Mechanical Engineering, UTM, for measuring the aerodynamic loadings and corresponding electrical power of the tested wind turbine. From the findings, the designed small-scaled wind turbine has maximum power coefficient of 58% at the optimal tip speed ratio of 4.55, has low cut-in wind speed of 2.3m/s and manages to generate mechanical power of 1.28W and electrical power of up to 24.73mW at the wind speed of 3.1m/s.