Active control of the tip vortex: an experimental investigation on the performance characteristics of a model turbine

This study is part of an on-going experimental research campaign that focuses on the active control of the tip leakage/vortex characteristics of a model horizontal axis wind turbine rotor using tip injection. This paper presents both baseline (no-injection) data as well as data with tip injection, concentrating on the effects of tip injection on power and thrust variations with the Tip Speed Ratio (TSR). The experiments are conducted by placing a specially designed 3-bladed model wind turbine rotor at the exit of a 1.7 m diameter open-jet wind tunnel. The rotor blades are non-linearly twisted and tapered with NREL S826 airfoil profile all along the span. The nacelle, hub and the blades are specifically designed to allow pressurized air to pass through and get injected from the blade tips while the rotor is rotating. Baseline results show that the general trends are as expected for a small wind turbine and the maximum power coefficient is reached at around TSR=4.5. Results with injection show that the tip injection has significant effect on the power and thrust coefficients in comparison to the baseline data, especially at TSR values higher than the max C-P TSR value. Both coefficients seem to be significantly increased due to tip injection and the max C-P TSR value also gets shifted to a slightly higher TSR value. Tip injection seems to have no significant effect for TSR values less than 3.5.