Joined Blade Wind Turbine

grabcad

This project was carried out in University of Southampton in 2014/2015, as final year Mechanical Engineering Thesis by 6 students. It is a novel patented concept of a "Joined Blade Rotor" (JBR) wind turbine, which comprises of 6 blades in total, each 2 blades making one Joined Blade Assembly. Having 2 joined blades can provide wind turbines with several advantages: Improved structural performance; The joined blade assembly under loading behaves as a "lattice structure" or a "truss structure", compared to a conventional wind turbine's blade which is effectively a cantilever beam under bending. This means that the blades are much stiffer and can be lighter. Because the structural performance is so great, the blades of the JBR can be slender, slim and aerodynamically super-efficient, along the entire blade-span, even at their root. Also, the combination of this bi-blade setup, increases the Lift-to-Drag ratio and results in very high aerodynamic efficiency of the rotor. Our project was to take the JBR theoretical concept and bring to life the first ever prototype. The prototype was designed and built in house and has a rotor diameter of 2m. It was also tested in the University's Wind Tunnel Facilities.