Darrieus wind turbine

Fig. 2: A very large Darrieus wind turbine on the Gasp peninsula, Quebec, Canada

Fig. 1: A Darrieus wind turbine once used to generate electricity

on the Magdalen Islands

The Darrieus wind turbine is a type of vertical axis

wind turbine (VAWT) used to generate electricity from
the energy carried in the wind. The turbine consists of a
number of curved aerofoil blades mounted on a vertical
rotating shaft or framework. The curvature of the blades
allows the blade to be stressed only in tension at high rotating speeds. There are several closely related wind turbines that use straight blades. This design of wind turbine
was patented by Georges Jean Marie Darrieus, a French
aeronautical engineer in 1931. There are major diculties in protecting the Darrieus turbine from extreme wind
conditions and in making it self-starting.

Method of operation

In the original versions of the Darrieus design, the aerofoils are arranged so that they are symmetrical and have
zero rigging angle, that is, the angle that the aerofoils are
set relative to the structure on which they are mounted.
This arrangement is equally eective no matter which direction the wind is blowingin contrast to the conventional type, which must be rotated to face into the wind.

Combined Darrieus-Savonius generator in Taiwan

When the Darrieus rotor is spinning, the aerofoils are

moving forward through the air in a circular path. Relative to the blade, this oncoming airow is added vecto1

GIROMILLS

Another problem arises because the majority of the mass

of the rotating mechanism is at the periphery rather
than at the hub, as it is with a propeller. This leads to
very high centrifugal stresses on the mechanism, which
must be stronger and heavier than otherwise to withstand
them. One common approach to minimise this is to curve
the wings into an egg-beater shape (this is called a
"troposkein" shape, derived from the Greek for the shape
of a spun rope) such that they are self-supporting and do
not require such heavy supports and mountings. See. Fig.
1.
How the Darrieus wind turbine works

In this conguration, the Darrieus design is theoretically

less expensive than a conventional type, as most of the
stress is in the blades which torque against the generator
located at the bottom of the turbine. The only forces that
need to be balanced out vertically are the compression
load due to the blades exing outward (thus attempting to
squeeze the tower), and the wind force trying to blow
the whole turbine over, half of which is transmitted to the
bottom and the other half of which can easily be oset
with guy wires.

rially to the wind, so that the resultant airow creates a

varying small positive angle of attack (AoA) to the blade.
This generates a net force pointing obliquely forwards
along a certain 'line-of-action'. This force can be projected inwards past the turbine axis at a certain distance,
giving a positive torque to the shaft, thus helping it to rotate in the direction it is already travelling in. The aerody- By contrast, a conventional design has all of the force of
namic principles which rotate the rotor are equivalent to the wind attempting to push the tower over at the top,
that in autogiros, and normal helicopters in autorotation. where the main bearing is located. Additionally, one cannot easily use guy wires to oset this load, because the
As the aerofoil moves around the back of the apparatus,
propeller spins both above and below the top of the tower.
the angle of attack changes to the opposite sign, but the
Thus the conventional design requires a strong tower that
generated force is still obliquely in the direction of rotagrows dramatically with the size of the propeller. Modern
tion, because the wings are symmetrical and the rigging
designs can compensate most tower loads of that variable
angle is zero. The rotor spins at a rate unrelated to the
speed and variable pitch.
windspeed, and usually many times faster. The energy
arising from the torque and speed may be extracted and In overall comparison, while there are some advantages
converted into useful power by using an electrical gener- in Darrieus design there are many more disadvantages,
especially with bigger machines in the MW class. The
ator.
Darrieus design uses much more expensive material in
The aeronautical terms lift and drag are, strictly speakblades while most of the blade is too close to the ground
ing, forces across and along the approaching net relative
to give any real power. Traditional designs assume that
airow respectively, so they are not useful here. We rewing tip is at least 40m from ground at lowest point to
ally want to know the tangential force pulling the blade
maximize energy production and lifetime. So far there
around, and the radial force acting against the bearings.
is no known material (not even carbon ber) which can
When the rotor is stationary, no net rotational force arises, meet cyclic load requirements.
even if the wind speed rises quite highthe rotor must already be spinning to generate torque. Thus the design is
not normally self-starting. Under rare conditions, Darrieus rotors can self-start, so some form of brake is required to hold it when stopped.
One problem with the design is that the angle of attack
changes as the turbine spins, so each blade generates its
maximum torque at two points on its cycle (front and back
of the turbine). This leads to a sinusoidal (pulsing) power
cycle that complicates design. In particular, almost all
Darrieus turbines have resonant modes where, at a particular rotational speed, the pulsing is at a natural frequency
of the blades that can cause them to (eventually) break.
For this reason, most Darrieus turbines have mechanical
brakes or other speed control devices to keep the turbine
from spinning at these speeds for any lengthy period of
time.

2 Giromills
Darrieuss 1927 patent also covered practically any possible arrangement using vertical airfoils. One of the
more common types is the H-rotor,[1][2][3] also called
the Giromill or H-bar design, in which the long egg
beater blades of the common Darrieus design are replaced with straight vertical blade sections attached to the
central tower with horizontal supports.

3
the blades properly.
A schematic of a self-acting pitch control system that
does not require a wind-direction system is shown in Figure 4.

4 Helical blades

Fig 3: A Giromill-type wind turbine

Quietrevolution wind turbine at the London Olympic Stadium

The blades of a Darrieus turbine can be canted into a

helix, e.g. three blades and a helical twist of 60 degrees, similar to Gorlovs water turbines. Since the wind
pulls each blade around on both the windward and leeward sides of the turbine, this feature spreads the torque
evenly over the entire revolution, thus preventing destructive pulsations. This design is used by the Turby, Urban
Green Energy, Enessere and Quiet Revolution brands of
wind turbine.

Fig 4: Schematic of mass-stabilised pitch control system.

Cycloturbines

Another variation of the Giromill is the Cycloturbine,

in which each blade is mounted so that it can rotate
around its own vertical axis. This allows the blades to be
pitched so that they always have some angle of attack
relative to the wind. The main advantage to this design
is that the torque generated remains almost constant over
a fairly wide angle, so a Cycloturbine with three or four
blades has a fairly constant torque. Over this range of
angles, the torque itself is near the maximum possible,
meaning that the system also generates more power. The
Cycloturbine also has the advantage of being able to selfstart, by pitching the downwind moving blade at to the
wind to generate drag and start the turbine spinning at a
low speed. On the downside, the blade pitching mechanism is complex and generally heavy, and some sort of
wind-direction sensor needs to be added in order to pitch

5 References
[1] S. Brusca, R. Lanzafame, M. Messina. Design of a
vertical-axis wind turbine: how the aspect ratio aects the
turbines performance. 2014.
[2] Mats Wahl. Designing an H-rotor type Wind Turbine for
Operation on Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station. 2007.
[3] H-rotor picture (page22)

6 External links
Bibliography of VAWT-related papers
Three Pitch Control Systems for Vertical Axis Wind
Turbines Compared - L. Lazauskas
Experimental Verication of a Mathematical Model
for Predicting the Performance of a Self-acting
Variable Pitch Vertical Axis Wind Turbines - B.K.
Kirke and L. Lazauskas

6
US patent 1,835,018
Craneld University press release on novelconguration vertical-axis wind turbine for oshore
generation
Brief introduction to the theory of Darrieus wind
turbines

EXTERNAL LINKS

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