TY - JOUR
TI - Numerical investigation of airfoils for small wind turbine applications
AU - Natarajan Karthikeyan
AU - Thomas Suthakar
AU - Bhagavathi Ammal Anand Ramachadran
JN - Thermal Science
PY - 2016
VL - 20
IS - 14
SP - 1091
EP - 1098
PT - Article
AB - A detailed numerical investigation of the aerodynamic performance on the five  airfoils namely Mid321a, Mid321b, Mid321c, Mid321d, and Mid321e were carried  out at Reynolds numbers ranging from 0.5×105 to 2.5×105. The airfoils used  for small wind turbines are designed for Reynolds number ranges between 3×105  and 5×105 and the blades are tend to work on off-design conditions. The blade  element moment method was applied to predict the aerodynamic loads, power  coefficient, and blade parameters for the airfoils. Based on the evaluate  data, it was found that Mid321c airfoil has better lift to drag ratio over  the range of Reynolds numbers and attained maximum power coefficient of  0.4487 at Re = 2×105.