Performance analysis of a small wind turbine rotor using CFD

Facing the difficulty of accessing electricity in some locations of the Amazon favor the emergence of alternative sources such as wind energy. Despite the notorious applicability of using wind turbines for generating electricity, regions with low wind speeds present a challenge in the design of efficient rotors for such a condition. Thus, this work aims to design a wind rotor adapted to low wind speed (3.5 - 12 m/s). The proposal uses the blade element theory and compare it with computational fluid dynamics. The turbine is a horizontal axis with 6.57 m diameter and 4 blades. It is identified that the rotor of the designed turbine can obtain a maximum output power of 1200 W, while the power coefficient is 0.341 and 0.375 for the BET and CFD approaches, respectively. Therefore, it can be stated that the results obtained present satisfactory agreement and present promising results in the generation of electricity with wind turbines in regions with low wind speeds.