Development of a horizontal three bladed windmill with vortex tubes

Abstract

Researchers have been continuously searching for the most readily available means of producing electricity without any negative effect on the environment. Renewable source of energy like solar energy, hydro electric energy, biomass and wind energy has been considered as the alternative. Wind energy among others is rated the best renewable sources of energy because it’s level of environmental friendliness. In this paper, a horizontal windmill was designed, fabricated and its performance evaluated with two types of vortices and without a vortex. The component parts of the mills are towel, blades, shafts, base, tail vain and vortex. During the design of the windmill, consideration was given to the size, area of the blade and the blade material that produce maximum speed. The performance evaluation was carried out to compare the performance of the mill with the solid vortex, gap vortex and without vortex. The result of the evaluation reflects that the solid vortices have the highest wind speed irrespective of time of the day and with an optimum wind speed of 5.04 m/s. Also, the wind mill performed at a higher efficiency with the vortex compare to when it was running without vortex.