Abstract
The pinwheel type wind turbine has the characteristics between the propeller type, which has a high tip speed ratio and a high power coefficient, and the multi blades type, which has a low tip speed ratio and a high torque coefficient. However until now, there has been little work to determine the optimum design configuration of pinwheel type wind turbines. The purpose of this paper is to clarify the characteristics and to determine the optimum design configuration of pinwheel type wind turbines. The authors fabricated the test rotors with various shapes and carried out the experiment in a wind tunnel. As a result, the high performance, such as power coefficient C_p=0.22,was obtained. Also, the authors examined the performance of the pinwheel type wind turbine generator. High speed type pinwheel wind turbine with diameter of 0.8m was directly connected to a generator and tested. As a result, electricity of 23W was obtained at a wind velocity of 8m/s.
