Performance investigation of H-rotor Darrieus turbine with new airfoil shapes

▸ Darrieus turbine is a promising concept for small wind-energy systems, but suffers from a poor efficiency. ▸ 20 different symmetric and non-symmetric airfoils are investigated, after validating the unsteady numerical procedure. ▸ Absolute efficiency increase of the new design is 10.87% compared to the conventional design. ▸ Relative increase of the power coefficient by 26.83% corresponding to the S-1046 airfoil is obtained. ▸ Optimal configuration of Darrieus turbine involving S-1046 appears to be very promising for wind energy in urban areas.