RESEARCH ON THE AERODYNAMICS OF BLADE PROFILES OF WIND TURBINES

Small capacity wind turbine performance is influenced in a large extent by the blade profiles aerodynamics. By this point of view, the paper presents the most important aspects of aerodynamic profiles, and aspects concerning their optimization in order to increase performance. The study of blade profiles polar led to the identification of a reference profile, NACA4418, for which the best aerodynamic lift drag ratio is obtained on a big range of attack angles. A flow analysis on the reference profile is performed, using a CFD model of numerical simulations in order to obtain performance for different wind speeds