Experimental and numerical investigations of the blade design effect on Archimedes Spiral Wind Turbine performance

An assessment has been launched on two Archimedes Spiral Wind Turbine (ASWT) rotor designs, fixed and variable-angles, to get the best performance. Such a turbine has the privilege of the low-speed axial flow turbine. This turbine is characterized by its simple design, ease of manufacture, and can be used in the generation of electric power in remote areas and new urban communities. The investigation of the two Archimedes Spiral Wind Turbine rotor designs was conducted numerically and experimentally. Numerical investigations are performed to predict the full performance of the turbine under different conditions and experimental measurements are acquired to validate the numerical results. A detailed comparison of the results for both designs demonstrates the higher performance of the variable-angle design over the fixed-angle one. The results indicate that the power and torque coefficients increase with the increase in wind velocity for both designs. However, the variable-angle design produces a power that represents a 14.7% increase over the fixed-angle design. [Display omitted] •The performance of ASWT has been experimentally and numerically investigated.•Experimental study is achieved in an open type wind tunnel for TSR above 1.5.•Numerical investigation is performed by solving 3D Reynolds Navier–Stokes equations.•Variable-angle rotor represents a 14.7% power increase over fixed-angle design at TSR = 1.96.