The effect of inlet curvature and flange on wind turbine diffuser performance

The modification is required to the conventional wind turbine in order to increase the power produced by the wind turbine located in the low wind velocity area. Attaching a diffuser to the conventional wind turbine is one of the ways to increase the wind velocity of the approaching wind thus increasing the extracted power. This research discussed the influence of geometry variation of diffuser augmented wind turbine equipped with inlet curvature and flanged. The analyzed geometry parameters were the length (L). the expansion angle ( θ ). the angle of inlet curvature ( β ). the radius of inlet curvature ( R ). and the flange height ( h ). In this study, experimental investigations were carried out to measure wind velocity ratio U / U ∞ (wind velocity on the central axis/free stream wind velocity) of various diffuser geometry designs with an installed rotor/wind turbine in it. The present diffuser augmented wind turbine provided higher wind velocity at the inlet section reaching the maximum velocity ratio U max / U ∞ of 2.01 compared to a bare wind turbine.