INFLUENCE OF THE NUMBER OF BLADES OF THE ARCHIMEDES WIND TURBINE ON ITS PERFORMANCE

Among alternative energy sources, wind energy is one of the fastest growing sectors. However, conventional wind turbines have their limits, especially when it comes to their application in more densely populated areas and in areas with a long-term lower average wind speed. In the future, the Archimedes wind turbine could contribute to an even more significant use of the potential of wind energy. In the present work, four models of Archimedes wind turbines with different numbers of blades were designed and subjected to CFD analysis to determine the power coefficient Cp and torque Mr depending on the tip speed ratio λ. In terms of the achieved torque and the power factor, the 3-blade variant dominated, which compared to the other variants achieved the highest values in almost the entire measured range of the tip-speed ratio.