This study presents experimental and numerical investigation for the effect of
number of blade (solidity) on the power and thrust coefficients of a small-scale horizontalaxis
wind turbine HAWT. An experimental set- up was installed on wind turbine rotors
with different number of blades, i.e. three, five and six, and at different tip speed ratios,
in the closed-circuit open-test section wind tunnel. The obtained results from CFD
simulations were performed to compare numerical data with experimental measurements.
In addition, there is a lack of information presented for the effect of rotor blade number
on the flow field for HAWT like vertical axis wind turbine VAWT. Therefore, the current
study extends to study the effect of solidity on the flow field using numerical calculation.
The numerical simulation was performed using a steady-RANS method. The SST k-ω
turbulence model was used to represent turbulent flow. It is found that decreasing the
number of blades (which makes the turbine less sensitive to the change in tip speed ratio)
the wind turbine with 3 blade configuration has the maximum power coefficient in respect
to 5 and 6 blade turbines, higher by around 2 and 4 percent respectively.