Comparative study of airfoil profile effect on the aerodynamic performance of small scale wind turbines

Small scale wind turbines employment is constantly growing, their widespread in remote and rural areas being motivated by the potential to harness wind energy in reduced power application. In order to maximize the yield of such wind turbines, the analysis of airfoil profiles performances is very important. Blade geometry is a crucial influencing factor on the aerodynamic performance of wind turbines. In this context, the present work investigates the performance of different blade airfoils for small scale wind turbines. To this regard, the following airfoils are taken into account, as they are frequently used for small scale wind turbines: NACA 0012, NACA0015, NRELS825 and NREL S833. A MATLAB code is developed to determine the chord and twist distribution, while the performance evaluation is made by means of Qblade software simulation. The study aims to determine the airfoil profile of the wind turbine blade that is able to operate adequately in a wide range of wind speeds, particularly in the low speeds domain. The wind characteristics are considered for Constanta area, in Romania, where the selected experimental installation for conducting the validation of results is set. The experimental results of the airfoil profile type $\ll$ BORNAY 1500W$\gg$ commercial model is considered as reference. Simulation results prove that NREL S833 airfoil profile shows the highest power coefficient. Moreover, its power curve matches the reference model, while reaching the maximum power at a wind speed of 12m/s, outrunning the other models by 30% in terms of energy production.