American Journal of Mechanical Engineering and Automation

2015; 2(1): 16-25

Published online January 30, 2015 (http://www.openscienceonline.com/journal/ajmea)

Effect of Number of Blades and Blade Chord Length on

the Performance of Darrieus Wind Turbine
1 1 2 1, *
Taher G. Abu-El-Yazied , Ahmad M. Ali , Mahdi S. Al-Ajmi , Islam M. Hassan
1
Design and Production Engineering Department, Faculty of Engineering, Ain Shams University, Cairo, Egypt
2
Department of Production Engineering Technologies, College of Technological Studies, PAAET, Kuwait

Email address
taher_abuelyazied@eng.asu.edu.eg (T. G. Abu-El-Yazied), dr.a.m.aly@amecath.com (A. M.
Ali), Islammohammed@eng.asu.edu.eg (I. M. Hassan)

To cite this article

Taher G. Abu-El-Yazied, Ahmad M. Ali, Mahdi S. Al-Ajmi, Islam M. Hassan. Effect of Number of Blades and Blade Chord Length on the
Performance of Darrieus Wind Turbine. American Journal of Mechanical Engineering and Automation. Vol. 2, No. 1, 2015, pp. 16-25.

Abstract

In this article we will go through some parameters like number of blades and blade chord length that influencing the efficiency of
straight Darrieus wind turbines. For this purpose, twelve models created with different number of blades and blade chord lengths
to study there effect on the performance of Darrieus wind turbine. Two dimensional Computational fluid dynamics (CFD) analyses
have been performed on a straight-bladed Darrieus-type rotor. After describing the computational model, a complete campaign of
simulations using K-ε turbulence model is chosen to perform the transient simulations and multiple reference frame (MRF) model
capability of a (CFD) solver is used to express the dimensionless form of power output of the wind turbine as a function of the
wind free stream velocity and the rotor’s rotational speed for a two, three, four and six-bladed architecture characterized by a
NACA 0021 airfoil. It was found that, max power coefficient and its corresponding tip speed ratio were obtained at number of
blades equal two and increase in power coefficient related to castelli wind turbine by 3.35%. Increasing in blade chord length
increase the power coefficient till a certain limit after which power coefficient was dramatically decreased due to increase in
solidity and decreasing corresponding tip speed ratio. Both torque ripple factor and normal force on turbine blade were decreased
with increasing of the number of blades and decreasing the blade chord length.

Keywords
Darrieus, Number of Blades, Blade Chord Length and Solidity

1. Introduction and Background small scale power generation [6, 7].

It is a well-known that wind energy is very important as
one of clean energy resources, and wind rotors are the most
important of the wind energy. There are two different physical
principles to extract power from wind. The first of them is the
airfoil drag method, and the second is the airfoil lift principle.
The Darrieus turbine is the most common VAWT invented in
1931 [1-5]. On the basis of the second principle, a lot of
investigations aim to improve the performance of vertical axis
wind turbine like Darrieus and Savonius by increasing wind
velocity. The differences between a horizontal and a vertical
axis wind turbine are many, including their utilization:
horizontal axis wind turbine is popular for large scale power
generation, while the vertical axis wind turbine is utilized for
The Number of blade is a very important term in any kind
of turbine. Number of blades are affected the speed and
efficiency of turbine. The most commonly used wind turbines
use three blades [8].
Considerable improvements in the understanding of
VAWT can be achieved through the use of CFD. This paper
aims at studying the effect of changing the design parameters,
number of blades, blade chord length, and turbine solidity, on
the performance of the H-Darrieus vertical axis wind turbine
with fixed pitch angle through CFD simulations [9, 10].
2. Problem Formulation
The speed ratio (λ) is defined as:
 American Journal of Mechanical Engineering and Automation 2015; 2(1): 16-25 17

λ (1) C (3)
!

"
"# $

A relation between the azimuth angle (θ), the angle of attack (4)
C !
%

(α) and the speed ratio (λ) has been obtained from the velocity "
"# $

triangle in Figure 1, this relation is as follo w:

ﾤ (5)
C
α tan ﾧ (2)
! "
" #$

ﾵ
C
-
!&'()
(6)
If the airfoil is set at an angle of incidenc e (α) in a fluid flow " #$
*

and according to the standard airfoil theory , it will generate a

C- C λ (7)
lift force (FL) normal to the free stream and a drag force (FD) in
the direction of the free stream. These lift and drag forces can Where CT and Cp are respectively the torque coefficient and
then be resolved to get the tangential force (FT) and the axial
the power coefficient, (P) is the mechanical power extracted,
force (FN) as shown in Figure 1. The tangential force (FT) has (ρ) is the air density, (A) is the turbine swept area, (R) is radius
the instantaneous responsibility of the tor que and the power
of turbine and (V) is wind free stream velocity. Power
outputs from the Darrieus turbine.
Coefficient depends on wind speed due to aerodynamic
For a Darrieus rotor of height (H), a wind of incoming
velocity (V), the mechanical power (P) and the mechanical complexities of blade designs. And CL and CD are respectively
Lift and drag coefficients.
torque on the axis of a Darrieus turbine can respectively be
write as follows:

Figure 1. For ces and velocities distribution on Darrieus rotor airfoil [3, 11, 12]

Between the many factors that influence the aerodynamic
behavior of the rotor, an important role is played by its
solidity, its means how much of the area that the tur bine
blades sweep through (swept area), is occupied by the tu
rbines blades, and defined as:
(8)
σ ﾤ
to verified turbulence model [11, 13]. Rotor azimuthal
position was identified by th e angular coordinate of the
pressure center of blade No. 1 (set at 0.25c for NACA 0021
airfoil), starting between the 2nd and 3rd Cartesian plane
octants, as can be seen from Fi gure 2.

Where, (n) denotes the number of blades and (c) the chord
length.

3. Geometrical Models
The aim of the present work is to numerically analyze the
aerodynamic behavior of a two, three, four and six bladed
Darrieus VAWT operating at different angular velocities, for
a constant wind speed of 9 m/s. The main features and
models solidity of the tested turbines models are summarized
in Table 1. Model 3 has the same dimensions of published
experimental Darrieus wind turbine results and it will be used Figure 2. Azimuthal coordinate of blade midsection’s center of pressure [11].
18 Taher G. Abu-El-Yazied et al.: Effect of Number of Blades and Blade Chord Length on the Performance of Darrieus Wind Turbine

Table 1. Main geometrical features of the tested models

Features Models
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12
Drotor [mm] 1030
Hrotor [m] 1 (2D simulation)
Blade profile NACA 0021
c [mm] 85.8 128.7 85.8 170 85.8 170 64.35 85.8 170 42.9 250 300
Solidity s 0.17 0.25 0.25 0.5 0.33 0.66 0.25 0.5 0.99 0.25 0.48 0.87
Number of blades(n) 2 2 3 3 4 4 4 6 6 6 2 3
Table 2. Mesh size for the tested models

Features Models
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12
Number of 148888 155487 149125 177107 165969 191154 158166 185383 223009 161255 155955 179636
elements(n)
Blade Size Element 0.71
[mm]
Growth rate 1.1

4. Description of the Numerical Flow
Field
Three separate zones are created, rotor zone being rotary,
square far-field being stationary and shaft field being
stationary as shown in Figure 3. The far-field mesh which is
of hexahedral type is less dense as compared to hexahedral
mesh in the rotary zone.
Figure 3. Schema of rotor sub-grid area and open domain for the three bladed VAWT
 Inlet was set as a velocity
inlet, with a constant
velocity profile of 9 m/s,
while outlet was set as a
pressure outlet. Two
symmetry boundary
conditions were used for the
two side walls. The
appropriate size of the
computational domain has
been investigated. A Realizable K-ɛ Turbulence
computational domain of
increasing dimensions
(square domain of size,
suitably normalized by the
rotor radius R, in this work,
the ratio between the square
domain length and the rotor
radius is 28, after different
domain sizes ranging from
20R to 60Rperformed for
one geometrical
configuration “at TSR 2.62”
as a domain size
independent test lead to a
relative variation of the
output quantity below 0.5
%., by using Gambit 2.4 for
modeling and meshing and
Ansys Fluent 14.5 for CFD
simulation [13].
5. Discretization
of the Numerical
Flow Field
All created meshes with
the same grid size and
growth factor. Turbulence
model used in this work is
model with standard wall
function. After
implementing simulation
software we found that the
y+ values found in present
work near all walls are
around 40 which fall within
the recommended range
[Best-practice CFD (30 < y+
< 300)]. Samples of 2-D
mesh discretization of the
tested models shown in
Figure 4and Figure 5 and
setting mesh size to
neutralized its effect on the
power coefficient is shown
in Table 2.
American Journal of Mechanical Engineering and Automation 2015; 2(1): 16-25 19

Figure 4. Sample 2-D mesh discretization of the VAWT


Figure 5. Mesh for NACA 0021 blade section
6. Main Features of the Numerical
Simulations
A complete campaign of simulations, based on full RANS
unsteady calculations, was performed for a two, three, four
and six-bladed rotor architecture characterized by a NACA
0021 airfoil. The tip speed ratio (λ) was varied from a value
of λ=1.44 (which corresponds to an angular velocity of
ω=25.1 rad/s) to λ=3.3 (which corresponds to an angular
velocity of ω=57.6 rad/s). These conditions correspond to a
range of blade Reynolds numbers from 2.69*10 4 to 1.05*105
for all Twelve models in Table 1.
The blade Reynolds number for this work was defined as:
Figure 6. These results give a good agreement obtained
between experiments and present CFD for the target function,
Cp, when using the realizable k-ε turbulence model. Same
tendency has been observed for other studies, proving the
interest of this model for fast CFD simulations. This model is
usually recommended for rotating bodies. The realizable k-ε
model usually provides improved results for swirling flows
and flow involving separation when compared to the standard
k-ε model. The near-wall treatment relies on standard wall
functions. The present study involves the application of
SIMPLE scheme. Among several special discretization
schemes available in FLUENT, Least squares cell based
gradient with Standard pressure and second order upwind
scheme are found to be appropriate for the present study.
Simulation begins with continues with the second order, and
among several Transient formulation available second order
implicit are found to be appropriate for the present work.
Convergence criterion for the solution is set as 10 -5.
Currently, our area of consideration is to determine the
forces acting on each of the three rotating airfoils and to
obtain an optimum value of tip speed ratio which gives the
maximum power output when wind passes the turbine at a
speed of 9 m/s. The two transport equations that need to be
solved for this model are for the kinetic energy of
turbulence, k, and the rate of dissipation of turbulence, ε
[14]:
 # .(01) . . @ .1
Re .3 + (7839) ;< +
=6
+ A1 − 7C (10)
(9) .5 6 .5 6 >? .5 6

μ
 .(0D) + . .
The dynamic viscosity (783C) ;< +

(µ) was assumed to be .56 .56

1.78·10-5 Pa·s, the density .3

(ρ) was set to 1.225 kg/m3

and the free stream velocity
(V) was set to 9 m/s.
7. Numerical
Solution
The effect of the turbulence
model is verified and
shown in
The quantities C1, C2, σk,
and se are empirical
constants. The quantity Gk
appearing in both equations
is a generation term for
turbulence. It contains
products of velocity
gradients, and also depends
on the turbulent viscosity:
20 Taher G. Abu-El-Yazied et al.: Effect of Number of Blades and Blade Chord Length on the Performance of Darrieus Wind
Turbine
Figure 7, Figure 8 and Figure 9, and with blade chord length

.G6 .GH .GH

A1 <3
(
.5 +
.5 )
.5 (12) 170 mm as shown in Figure 10, Figure 11 and Figure 12.
H 6 6

Other source terms can be added to Equations (11) and

(12) to include other physical effects such as swirl, buoyancy
or compressibility, for example. The turbulent viscosity is
derived from both k and ɛ, and involves a constant taken
from experimental data, Cm, which has a value of 0.09:
1"
<3

(13)
7F= D

All values of setting parameters for fluent software, used

in the present work were shown in Table 3.

8. Results and Discussion

Figure 7. Power coefficient as a function of tip speed ratio for models with
chord equal 85.8 mm
The following results represent the values of the power
coefficient of the analyzed models mentioned in Table 1 as a
function of the tip speed ratio, for an incident wind speed of
9 m/s. The peak power coefficients for the analyzed rotor
configurations are presented in Table 4, using the power
coefficient of the verified three-bladed turbine as a reference,
a percentage of maximum performance calculated for other
configurations. And a percentage of the value of tip speed
ratio to obtain the peak power is calculated for other
configurations as shown in Table 4.

Figure 8. Effect of solidity and number of blades on power coefficient at

c=85.6 mm

Figure 6. Verification of computational model, compared to experimental and

CFD results for a Darrieus turbine [13]
8.1. The Effect of Figure 9. Effect of solidity and
Turbine number of blades on TSR that
Parameters obtained maximum power
on Power coefficient at c=85.6 mm
Coefficient

8.1.1. Effect of
Number of Blades
Numerical analysis was
performed in order to
understand the effect of blade
number and solidity on the
behavior of a straight-bladed
vertical-axis wind turbine. It
was found that, maximum
power coefficient was Figure 10. Power coefficient as a
increased with increasing in function of tip speed ratio for
Solidity and number of blades models with blade chord equal to
170 mm
for number of blade lower
than 3.And Maximum power
coefficient was decreased
with increasing in Solidity
and number of blades for
blade number upper than 3.
Also it was found that,
corresponding tip speed ratio
obtained this maximum
power coefficient was
decreased with increase
solidity and number of
blades. These analyses
obtained with blade chord
length equal 85.6 as shown in