Development of a Didactic Wind Energy Laboratory: Comparative Analysis of VAWT and HAWT Technologies

Details

Supervisors

Jeanmart, Hervé

Faculty

Ecole polytechnique de Louvain

Degree label

Master [120] : ingénieur civil en génie de l'énergie , à finalité spécialisée

Abstract

enSmall-scale wind energy is attracting growing interest, particularly for urban applications characterized by complex and turbulent airflows. Concurrently, UCLouvain recently acquired a new active fan-array wind tunnel (WindShaper) for research and educational purposes. The primary objective of this thesis is to leverage this new facility to design an experimental framework to characterize and compare the aerodynamic performances of a horizontal-axis wind turbine (HAWT) and a hybrid vertical-axis wind turbine (VAWT). To overcome the measurement limitations of the previous setup, a microcontroller-based active electronic load was developed, enabling reliable acquisition of the turbines' characteristic curves. Experiments revealed that the blockage effect in a closed test section artificially overestimates the maximum power coefficient (C_p) of the HAWT by 31.3%. In an open test section, the HAWT demonstrated a higher overall efficiency (max C_p of 0.22) compared to the VAWT (max C_p of 0.17). However, a point-by-point analysis showed that the hybrid VAWT significantly outperformed the HAWT at low tip-speed ratios (< 2.69), which is presumed to be due to the high starting torque of its central Savonius core. Investigating the impact of actively generated ambient turbulence revealed distinct aerodynamic behaviors. For the HAWT, elevated turbulence did not improve high-speed energy extraction but significantly accelerated wake recovery by destabilizing the tip vortices. Conversely, ambient turbulence benefited the VAWT architecture by delaying dynamic stall on the Darrieus blades, thereby considerably widening its operational envelope at high speeds. Finally, based on these findings, new educational laboratory protocols are proposed to enhance engineering students' understanding of wind energy systems.