1

Proceedings of the 37
th
International & 4
th
National Conference on Fluid Mechanics and Fluid Power
FMFP2010
December 16-18, 2010, IIT Madras, Chennai, India
FMFP2010________
PERFORMANCE MEASUREMENT OF A TWO-BLADED H-
DARRIEUS TURBINE MADE FROM FIBREGLASS
REINFORCED PLASTICS (FRP) BLADES
e-mci|: cgniLi:@ychcc.cc.in e-mci|: r_guplcnil:i|@ychcc.ccm

ABSTRACT
Vertical Axis Wind Turbine (VAWT)
has got many advantages, like simple in
construction, omni-directional, self-
starting, low wind applications etc,
which make VAWT a viable
proposition for functions like pumping,
irrigation, grinding etc. However,
VAWT is not gaining popularity largely
due to its low efficiency. In this paper,
the power coefficient (C
p
) of a two-
bladed H-Darrieus turbine made from
Fibreglass Reinforced Plastic (FRP)
blades was measured in a subsonic wind
tunnel for height-to-diameter (H/D)
ratios of 0.85, 1.0, 1.54 and 1.72. Three
types of wind tunnel blockages, namely
solid, wake and sidewall blockages
were considered for measuring C
p
. C
p
increased with the increase of H/D ratio
up to the maximum, and then decreased
even if H/D ratio was increased. Thus,
there was an optimum H/D ratio for
which C
p
was the maximum. And the
maximum C
p
of 0.267 was obtained at
an optimum H/D ratio of 1.0.
Keywords: Two-bladed FRP, tip speed
ratio, wind tunnel blockage, power
coefficient, H/D ratio
INTRODUCTION
Wind energy is the most prolific
alternative source of energy for power
generation. The rise in the demand for
wind energy is reflected in the
increasing growth of wind-based energy
systems all over the world. Global Wind
Energy Council (GWEC) has predicted
that the global wind market will be
growing by over 155% from its current
size to reach 240 GW of total installed
capacity by the year 2012. According to
the figures released by GWEC (GWEC,
2009), the five top countries in terms of
installed wind power capacity are USA
(35,159 MW), Germany (25,777 MW),
China (25,104 MW), Spain (19,149
MW) and India (10,926 MW). Wind
turbine is the heart of any wind-based
energy system. Though most of the
wind turbines in the present era are
HAWT type, but VAWT has got
definite role to play especially in low
wind speed condition. The VAWT
Agnimitra Biswas
Lecturer (Contract), Deptt. of Mechanical Engg.,
NIT Silchar
NIT Silchar, Assam, India
Rajat Gupta
Prof. (Mech. Engg) & Dean (R & C), Deptt. of
Mechanical Engg., NIT Silchar
NIT Silchar, Assam, India

Proceedings of the 37th National & 4th International Conference on Fluid Mechanics and Fluid Power
December 16-18, 2010, IIT Madras, Chennai, India.
FMFP10 - TM- 23
2
could be a viable proposition for small-
scale applications in the remote areas of
any developing country (Islam et al.,
2005). But the major problem with
VAWT is its low power coefficient.
Thus, the challenge lies in designing a
VAWT having high power coefficient.
There are at present several
VAWT models commercially available
such as Savonius turbine, Darrieus
turbine, H-Darrieus turbine etc. S.J.
Savonius, a Finnish scientist, developed
Savonius turbine initially in 1929
(Savonius, 1931). Savonius tested about
30 different models of the turbine in the
wind tunnel. The best model showed a
power coefficient (C
p
) of 31%. The
eggbeater Darrieus wind turbine was
originally invented and patented by
Georges Jean Marie Darrieus, a French
aeronautical engineer, (Darrieus, 1931).
H-Darrieus turbine was included in the
same patent of 1931. The major
problem with eggbeater Darrieus
turbine or Savonius turbine is that of
stall at increased wind speeds created by
the blade moving out of the wind in the
downstream side. This limits the speed
that the advancing blade can propel the
whole rotation forward. However, H-
Darrieus turbine is self-regulatory at all
wind speeds (Islam et al., 2005). The
H-Darrieus turbine has two or three
blades designed as airfoils, which are
attached vertically to the central shaft
through support arms. The support to
vertical axis helps the turbine maintain
its shape. Only few works, mostly
related to prototype testing, on H-
Darrieus turbine were reported in the
literature. Roynarin et al. (Roynarin et
al., 2002) studied theoretically the
power curves for a small prototype of
H-Darrieus turbine and obtained a
maximum C
p
of 0.54 at a tip speed ratio
of 2.5. Gupta et al. (Gupta et al., 2010)
experimentally evaluated C
p
with tunnel
blockage of a twisted three-bladed
airfoil shaped H-Darrieus turbine made
from lightweight aluminium blades and
obtained a maximum C
p
of 0.15 at H/D
ratio of 1.10. Howell et al. (Howell et
al., 2010) experimentally investigated
the performances of a two-bladed H-
Darrieus turbine and obtained a
maximum C
p
of 0.25. Fibreglass
plastics as wind turbine blades would be
popular in near future since it has better
fatigue properties (McGowan et al.,
2002). Further, it is light weighted
having a density of almost 1.9 g/cc,
which is less than aluminium (2.7 g/cc).
In this paper, an attempt has been made
to experimentally study the performance
of a two-bladed H-Darrieus turbine
made from Fibreglass Reinforced
Plastic (FRP). The FRP is anisotropic in
nature unlike aluminium or steel, and it
contains reinforcement of high aspect
ratio (ratio of length to thickness of the
reinforcement) to enhance directional
properties. The physical properties
(Gardiner et al., 2002; Schmit and
Kevin, 1998) of a typical FRP are given
in table 1. The FRP selected for the
present study was a composite of
polyvinyl chloride (PVC) type
thermoplastic, reinforced by fine glass
fibres. The turbine was designed and
fabricated in the department.
Physical Properties Values
Thermal conductivity 0.05 W/mK
Coefficient of thermal
expansion
0.9 1.5 x
10
-5
in./in./
0
F
Density 1.9 g/cc
Tensile strength 148.4 MPa
3
Table 1- Physical properties of FRP
Compressive strength
101.6 x 10
6
N/m
Modulus of elasticity 1 x 10
6
psi -
3 x 10
6
psi

DETAILED DESIGN OF THE
MODEL
The two-bladed H-Darrieus turbine is
shown in Fig 1. The height (H) of the
turbine is 20 cm and width of the blades
is 5 cm with an angular twist of 30
0
at
the trailing ends as shown in Fig 1. Self-
starting ability of the turbine was
enhanced by the twists at the tips; since
starting torque would be high as
dynamic pressure is also high at the
twist ends. The blades were mounted in
such a way that the twists provided on
the blades were symmetrical. The
blades were mounted on the supports of
mild steel screwed bolts of 5 mm
diameter & 12 cm length, through
which blades were connected to the
central shaft of 1.5 cm diameter. The
blades were moved through the screwed
bolts inwards and outwards to change
the overall turbine diameter (D) and
fixed at different locations by nuts.
Changing D, but keeping H constant
created total four H/D ratios. A ball
bearing supported the shaft at the base.
The central shaft, bearing and base were
made from mild steel. The turbine was
tested in an open circuit subsonic wind
tunnel having wind speed adjustable
between 0 to 35 m/sec. The H/D ratios
selected in the study were 0.85, 1.0,
1.54 and 1.72. The turbine rpm was
measured by a digital tachometer
having a least count of 1 rpm, and wind
velocity was measured by a pitot static
tube.

THE WIND TUNNEL

The tests were conducted on an open-
circuit subsonic wind tunnel available in
the department as shown in Fig.2. The
cross-sectional area of test section of the
tunnel was 30 cm x 30 cm. The length of
the test section was 3 meters. The blower
section consisted of a three phase 15 kW
motor having rated rpm of 2890 that
drove the fan. The motor had a starter
for switching on and off the fan. The
operating range of the wind tunnel was
035 m/s. The turbulence intensity was
less than 1%. The brief description of the
wind tunnel is given in (Gupta el al.,
2006).
Fig.1 Two-bladed H-Darrieus turbine
4
Fig 2 Schematic diagram of subsonic wind tunnel

ANALYSIS OF RESULTS
The performance of a wind turbine can
be expressed as the variation of power
coefficient (C
p
) versus tip speed ratio
(TSR) at any H/D ratio. The wind tunnel
blockage effect was taken into
consideration. When an object is placed
in a wind tunnel, the object creates
blockage to the flow, and it increases the
local free stream wind velocity in the test
section. In wind tunnel testing, its effect
is taken into consideration to determine
the actual power produced by the
turbine. The total factor is the sum of the
velocity increment caused by wake
blockage, solid blockage and also
sidewall blockage (Blackwell et al.,
1977; Pope and Harper, 1966). The total
blockage correction factors for H/D
ratios 0.85, 1.0, 1.54 and 1.72 are
33.35%, 37.53%, 53.17% and 58.59%
respectively. In the present study, the
following relations have been utilized
3
_
2
2
2
1
3
_
2
2
2
1
) (
2
1
) (
2
1
block free
block free
p
V
R V V
AV
R V V A
C

=
(1)
V
free_block
= V
free
(1+) (2)
= + + (3)
W H
A
A
A
F
TS
F

= =
4 4

(4)
u
u c
q
q q
=
(5)
Where,
2
S
F
,
,
A
A
4
1
1

+ = =
c d
u d
u
c
C
C
q
q
(6)
W H
ncH
A
A
w
TS
S w

= =
4
6
4
6

(7)

1 1
V
R
V
u
= = (8)
For the two-bladed H-Darrieus turbine,
the variations of C
p
with respect to tip
speed ratio for four H/D ratios: 0.85, 1.0,
1.54 and 1.72 are plotted based on the
experimental observations. The plots of
C
p
are shown from Fig.3 to Fig.6. It can
be observed from Fig.3 that, at H/D ratio
of 0.85, C
p
increases with the increase of
TSR up to the maximum and then
decreases even though TSR is increased.
The maximum C
p
of 0.242 is obtained at
2.124 TSR. At H/D ratio of 1.0, the
variation of C
p
follows the same trend as
5
Fig. 3 Variation of C
p
with TSR for two-bladed H-turbine at H/D = 0.85
Fig.4 Variation of C
p
with TSR for two-bladed H-turbine at H/D = 1.0
previous case, which may be observed in
Fig.4. And the maximum C
p
of 0.267 is
obtained at 2.214 TSR. Therefore, the
maximum C
p
has increased with the
increase of H/D ratio. Figure 5 shows
that at H/D ratio of 1.54, the maximum
C
p
of 0.099 is obtained at 0.837 TSR.
Now, the maximum C
p
has dropped
since the last H/D ratio of 1.0; therefore,
the optimum H/D ratio at which C
p
is the
highest is 1.0. At H/D ratio of 1.72,
Fig.6, the maximum C
p
is 0.064 at 0.793
TSR. Thus, the highest value of C
p
of
0.267 is obtained at H/D ratio of 1.0.
The highest C
p
of 0.267 corresponds to a
blockage correction factor of 37.53%,
which is quite high. In spite of high
blockage, the result is quite relevant in
that its C
p
is higher than the C
p
of H-
Darrieus turbine without blade twist
(Howell et al., 2010). And after scaling
up this turbine, it could be used for
small-scale applications especially in
remote places where grid-connected
electricity is a scarce.
H/D = 0.85
0.2
0.21
0.22
0.23
0.24
0.25
0 0.5 1 1.5 2 2.5
Tip Speed Rat io
C
p


H/D = 1 .0
0.234
0.243
0.252
0.261
0.27
0 0.5 1 1.5 2 2.5
Tip Speed Ratio
C
p

Fig.5 Variation of C
p
with TSR for two-bladed H-turbine at H/D = 1.54
Fig.6 Variation of C
p
with TSR for two-bladed H-turbine at H/D = 1.72
H/D = 1.54
0.02
0.04
0.06
0.08
0.1
0.12
0 0.3 0.6 0.9 1.2
Tip Speed Rat io
C
p


H/D = 1 .7 2
0.03
0.04
0.05
0.06
0.07
0 0.4 0.8 1.2
Tip Spe ed Ratio
C
p


CONCLUSIONS
Based on the investigation, the
following conclusions have been
drawn:
i) C
p
increases with the increase
of H/D ratio up to the maximum
and then decreases even though
H/D ratio is increased. Thus, it can
be concluded that there is an
optimum value of H/D ratio for
which C
p
is the maximum. And
from the present study, the
maximum C
p
of 0.267 is obtained
at the optimum H/D ratio of 1.0.
ii) From the present investigation, it is
also seen that the total blockage
correction factor comprising of three
components of solid, wake and sidewall
blockages is quite significant in the
performance measurement of the H-
Darrieus turbine with the highest C
p
of
0.267 obtained for 37.53% blockage
correction factor.
iii) It can further be concluded that
blades made from FRP will be a viable
option since it is light in weight, strong
and has significantly high power
coefficient even for high blockage effect,
which is quite comparable to
conventional Savonius like VAWT.
7
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
The authors acknowledge with
thanks the support provided by Mr.
Sudhir Deb, Mr. Manik
Rajbangshi, Mr. Sashi Mohan Roy
and Mr. Abdul Salam for their
help.
NOMENCLATURE
A turbine swept area (HD)
A
S
blade planform area
(ncH)
c blade chord
C
d,u
drag coefficient
uncorrected for
blockage
C
d,c
drag coefficient
corrected for blockage
C
p
power coefficient
D overall turbine diameter
H height of turbine
H
/
height of test section
n total number of blades
q
c
dynamic pressure
corrected for blockage
q
u
dynamic pressure
uncorrected for
blockage
V
free
free-stream wind
velocity uncorrected for
blockage
V
free_block
free stream wind
velocity with total
blockage correction
factor
V
1
wind velocity on the
upstream of turbine
(m/sec)
V
2
wind velocity on the
downstream of turbine
W width of test section
solid blockage
correction factor
wake blockage
correction factor
sidewall blockage
correction factor
tip speed ratio
(TSR)

w
wall correction factor
circular frequency of the turbine
total blockage correction factor
REFERENCES
Darrieus, G.J.M., 1931. US Patent no. 1
835 018.
Gardiner, C.P., Mathys, Z., Mouritz, A.P.,
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th
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8
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