Abstract
Performance measurements of two small-scale Low Center-of-Gravity Wind Turbines (LCGWTs) with symmetrical blade sections and cambered blade sections were carried out. The blade section on the equator level of the cambered blade LCGWT was made by a conformal mapping of a symmetrical blade of NACA 0018. Diameter of each turbine rotor is 0.4m and height is 0.25m. The chord length of a blade of both LCGWTs increases from 0.11m to about 0.17m with decreasing the local height. A dead band, in which a rotor had negative torque, existed at low wind speed (2-3 m/s) in the case of the symmetrical blade rotor, however, any dead band was not observed in the case of cambered blade one. This means the cambered blade sections improve the self-starting performance of LCGWT. Over a wide range of tip speed ratio, the cambered blade LCGWT was superior to the symmetrical blade one.
