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An investigation of a 3D printed micro-wind turbine for residential power production

1Department of Mechanical Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, Al-Hussein Bin Talal University, Ma’an, Jordan

2Department of Electrical Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, Al-Hussein Bin Talal University, Ma’an, Jordan

Received: 20 Feb 2023; Revised: 25 Mar 2023; Accepted: 11 Apr 2023; Available online: 21 Apr 2023; Published: 15 May 2023.
Editor(s): H Hadiyanto
Open Access Copyright (c) 2023 The Author(s). Published by Centre of Biomass and Renewable Energy (CBIORE)
Creative Commons License This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

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Abstract

The wind energy sector is rapidly growing and has become one of the most important sources of renewable power production. New technologies are being developed to increase energy production. This study focuses on developing and evaluating a 3-D printed micro-wind turbine system for residential electricity production. The effectiveness of using Poly Lactic Acid material for model production was assessed using the SolidWorks environment. Then, three–dimensional CFD model was developed to simulate a micro-wind turbine. The CFD model was validated in good agreement against scale physical model experiments performed in a wind tunnel. The results demonstrated that the 5-blade micro-wind turbine design was the most effective under the tested conditions, with a low cut-in speed and the ability to operate under torque up to 70 N.m. Finally, the currently available manufacturing processes for micro-wind turbines have been evaluated. Future work should evaluate the performance of the MWT system under realistic conditions in a site test to determine energy production and total efficiency

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Keywords: Wind energy harvest; Low-speed wind turbine testing; Structural test; CFD; Model performance

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