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Shrouded Small Wind Turbines, Kristen Flannery, Michael Holligan, Joseph Soares
Shrouded Small Wind Turbines, Kristen Flannery, Michael Holligan, Joseph Soares
Mechanical Engineering Senior Theses
The goal of this project is to improve the energy production of small wind turbines (rated less than 100 kW) by increasing wind velocity at the turbine blades through the design of a shroud attachment. The design process involves the analysis of various computer aided design (CAD) nozzle/diffuser shroud geometries. Computational fluid dynamic (CFD) modeling is used to analyze the effect of shroud features on velocity and pressure fields. A 3D printed scale model is tested in a wind tunnel with strain gauges and pressure transducers to validate the CFD data. The resulting design locally increases velocity by a factor …