Small Wind Turbines Analysis, Design, and Application

About this book

This volume provides a thorough grounding in analysing, designing, building, and installing a small wind turbine. Small turbines are introduced by emphasising their differences from large ones and the book includes access to accompanying software featuring MATLAB programs for power production and starting performance, as well as programs for detailed multi-objective optimisation of blade design.

Contents

1. Introduction to Wind Turbine Technology
2. Control Volume Analysis for Wind Turbines
3. Blade Element Theory for Wind Turbines
4. Aerofoils: Lift, Drag, and Circulation
5. Blade Element Calculations
6. Starting and Low Wind Speed Performance
7. Blade Design, Manufacture, and Testing
8. The Unsteady Aerodynamics of Turbine Yaw and Over-speed Protection
9. Using the IEC Simple Load Model for Small Wind Turbines
10. Tower Design and Manufacture
11. Generator and Electrical System
12. Site Assessment and Installation

Customer Reviews

Biography

David Wood has Bachelors' and Masters' degrees in Mechanical Engineering from Sydney University and a PhD in Aeronautics from Imperial College, London, UK. He has been Senior Research Associate at NASA Ames Research Centre in California and has spent many years in the Faculty of Engineering at Newcastle University, where he was instrumental in developing a research group in small wind turbine technology. Dr Wood was the Australian representative on the international committee that recently revised the International Electrotechnical Commission safety standard for small wind turbines.

In 2006 he left the University of Newcastle to start Aerogenesis Australia, a small company building small wind turbines. In February 2010 he was appointed to the Enmax/Schulich Chair of Renewable Energy at the University of Calgary. He is the editor for small turbines and aerodynamics for the journal "Wind Engineering" and has authored and co-authored over 120 refereed journal and conference papers in these areas. He holds patents on blade and controller design.