As we see an overall shift towards renewable energy sources, wind turbines have garnered a lot of interest in the recent past. With the global shift towards urbanization, the uneven heating of constructed environments can induce the formation of vertical air currents known as "thermals". This project explores the design and construction of a novel wind turbine capable of orientating its blades' axis of rotation to harvest energy from thermals optimally. We designed an optimized structural support for the assembly, a novel tilt mechanism to change the axis of the blades and developed and validated data acquisition methods to measure the torque and power generated by the turbine. CFD simulations and experimental testing were conducted to validate the design's efficacy.

• This report represents the work of one or more WPI undergraduate students submitted to the faculty as evidence of completion of a degree requirement. WPI routinely publishes these reports on its website without editorial or peer review.

Creator

• Leal Figueredo, Jose Arturo
• Segui, Matthew
• Isaac, Jacob
• Komninos, Georgios

Subject

• Sustainability
• Infrastructure
• Energy

Publisher

• Worcester Polytechnic Institute

Identifier

• E-project-042524-144253
• 121769

Keyword

• Clean Energy
• Tilt Mechanism
• Torque Measurements
• Wind Energy
• Wind Turbine
• Thermals

Advisor

• Sabuncu, Ahmet Can
• Gnanaskandan, Aswin

Year

• 2024

UN Sustainable Development Goals

• 7 - Affordable and Clean Energy

Date created

• 2024-04-25

Resource type

• Major Qualifying Project

Major

• Mechanical Engineering

Source

• E-project-042524-144253

Rights statement

• In Copyright

License

• Creative Commons BY Attribution 4.0 International