Paper Title
Design and Construction of a Low Cost Open Circuit Wind Tunnel For Testing of Small Wind Turbines
Abstract
Wind tunnels have long been an indispensable part of aerospace and automotive industry because of their ability
to simulate actual operating conditions and determine working characteristics at an early stage in design process of aircrafts,
wind turbines and space crafts. In the following work an open circuit wind tunnel was designed and constructed and a wind
turbine blade of diameter 90cm was tested. The setup is 3.5m long with a test section of dimensions1mX1m.A 50cc 6hp RC
model aircraft engine with 24X10” propeller was used to provide wind speeds of up to 15m/s in the test section. The test
section consists of a replaceable hub to which different blades can be mounted and tested. The values of RPM and
mechanical power were determined using this wind tunnel which were then compared to the theoretical values.