Design of Airfoil with High Efficiency and High Starting Performance for Straight-bladed Vertical Axis Wind Turbine

Abstract

A new airfoil for straight-bladed vertical axis wind turbines is designed by a genetic algorithm and two-dimensional vortex method aimed at improving both the starting performance and efficiency at a cruising condition, which is the tip-speed ratio of λ = 2.0. The new airfoil has a negative camber and its aerodynamic performance is remarkably improved at the second and the third quadrants in the rotating plane, compared with the conventional NACA0018 airfoil.