Abstract
•Novel wind tunnel proposal for power generation.•Novel tunnel structure with conical shape and elevation height change.•Preliminary measured and simulated wind speeds of novel wind tunnel are introduced.•Performance comparison between novel wind tunnel and regular conical shape one.•The wind tunnel is envisioned to be used at top of hill to generate electricity.
A novel wind tunnel with conical and elevation structure is proposed and demonstrated for power generation. A sucking fan is placed at the wind tunnel front end to simulate wind in the atmosphere and a wind turbine is placed at the backend of the wind tunnel to generate electricity. The wind turbine uses 48cm diameter blades made from aluminum. The wind tunnel is made up from galvanized aluminum with square front and back ends with side length of 0.75m and 0.5m, respectively. The elevation change in the wind tunnel structure measured from center to center of frontend and backend is 1.5m.
Numerical simulations were conducted to calculate wind speeds at different position in the wind tunnel. Wind speeds were compared with those of a straight conical wind tunnel with no elevation height change. Different wind speeds were applied in the simulations at the inlet of the wind tunnel which represent actual measured data for Medina, Saudi Arabia. The measured average monthly wind speed in Medina, KSA over 10 years is 5.5m/s. The numerical simulations showed better performance of the novel wind tunnel compared to straight conical structure.