Study on the Characteristic of the Aeroacoustic Noise of a Straight-bladed Vertical-axis Wind Turbine

Abstract

Using a microphone array, a wind tunnel experiment for a straight-bladed vertical-axis wind turbine (VAWT) was carried out to investigate the effects of the arm’s cross-sectional shape on the power performance and aeroacoustic noise. As a result, the amount of power reduced by the ellipse arms was significantly smaller than the rectangle arms and slightly larger than the airfoil arms. In addition, the values of the overall A-weighted sound pressure level (OASPL) in the case of using the ellipse arms were significantly lower than those of using the airfoil arms and almost the same as the rectangle arms. Also, at the high frequency range, A-weighted SPL of the ellipse arm case was significantly lower than that of the airfoil arm case.