COMPUTATIONAL AND EXPERIMENTAL INVESTIGATION OF NATURAL FIBER-REINFORCED COMPOSITE (NFRC) BLADE MATERIAL FOR H-DARRIEUS WIND TURBINE AT LOW WIND SPEED OPERATIONS

TEMESGEN, ABRIHAM

dc.contributor.author	TEMESGEN, ABRIHAM
dc.date.accessioned	2021-10-01T11:02:34Z
dc.date.available	2021-10-01T11:02:34Z
dc.date.issued	2021-06
dc.identifier.uri	http://ir.bdu.edu.et/handle/123456789/12691
dc.description.abstract	The goal of this study is to improve the aerodynamic performance of H-Darrieus VAWT. It merely demonstrates factors affecting the aerodynamic performance with enhancements options.To this end, the double multiple stream tube (DMST) model was used to determine optimum pitch configuration at the minimum possible tip speed ratio (λ). Once the optimal design point was obtained, two dimensional (2D) unsteady computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulation was carried out to describe the flow physics of the rotor. The power coefficient (Cp) obtained in the DMST model was 0.464 which is in agreement with the present CFD simulation result computed by the SST k-ω model (i.e Cp = 0.4537) and wind tunnel experimental findings from kinds of literature. This implies the performance of straight blade H-Darrieus VAWT with VP design is 37.2% better than one with the fixed pitch (β = 0 degrees) blades. Next, the performances of hybrid Natural fiber renforced composites (NFRCs) from E- glass, nacha, and sisal fibers are investigated for H-Darriues rotor blades design. In the process of composite manufacturing from sisal and nacha fibers, manual fiber extraction assisted with ‗water socking‘ was undertaken. To improve the interfacial interaction between fibers, 5% NaOH was used for fiber treatment and remnants removal. Four levels i.e 5%, 10%, 15 %, and 20% of sisal and nacha were hybrid with 10% of E-glass fiber. The experimental design was performed according to Taguchi L16 orthogonal array for a tensile, flexural, and compressive test. The composites are manufactured using the hand layup method, and the test specimens are prepared as per ASTM standards. Then tensile, flexural, and compressive tests were carried out using the universal testing machine (UTM). For statistical interpretations of experimental response analysis of variance (ANOVA) was used. Hence, in the main effect, it was confirmed that nacha fiber (%wt of N) significantly contributing to tensile, flexural, and compressive strength at a 95% level of confidence. N2S4 (10%wtN, 20%wtS), N1S3 (5%wtN,15%wtS), and N2S2(10%wtN, 10%wtS) with constant glass fiber weight ratio represent the higher signal to noise ratio (S/N) for the corresponding tensile, flexural and compressive strengths. Hence, it concluded that the enhanced aerodynamic design of the blade with hybrid NRFCs material can afford significant turbine selfstarting.	en_US
dc.language.iso	en_US	en_US
dc.subject	ENERGY CENTER	en_US
dc.title	COMPUTATIONAL AND EXPERIMENTAL INVESTIGATION OF NATURAL FIBER-REINFORCED COMPOSITE (NFRC) BLADE MATERIAL FOR H-DARRIEUS WIND TURBINE AT LOW WIND SPEED OPERATIONS	en_US
dc.type	Thesis	en_US