Rotor Blade Performance Analysis with Blade Element Momentum Theory

Abstract

In order to optimally explore and utilize wind energy, an optimal design of wind turbine propeller blades needs to be obtained. Therefore, a computational method to analyze and optimize the performance of the blades needs to be developed. For that purpose, a computational method based on the Blade Element Momentum (BEM) theory is developed in the present study. In this method, the propeller blade is divided into several elements and it is assumed that there is no aerodynamic interaction amongst the elements. Furthermore, the equations from momentum and blade element theories are combined to obtain equations which are useful in blades design process. In the analysis, tip and root losses proposed by Prandtl are also implemented. The computation results are validated using Qblade software. A good agreement can be found from comparison of the results computed from the developed BEM and QBlade.