This study is aimed at investigating the aerodynamic performance of the wind turbine blade with winglets and compares its performance in terms of the power generated with a regular straight blade without winglet. Adding a winglet to the wind turbine blade improves the power production without increasing the projected rotor area. A parameter study is carried out where two of the key parameters which describe a winglet design namely the cant angle and the winglet height are varied. The winglet is bent towards the pressure (upstream) side. Pro/ENGINEER is used to generate a straight wind turbine blade which is then modified in SPACECLAIM to attach a winglet to it. Single blade analysis approach is chosen to carry out the computation, as this involves less computational time and low cost. Results show that adding a winglet to a straight blade increases its power output by 2% to 20%. In addition, winglet which has a cant angle of 45° performs better, generating more power than the winglet which is perpendicular to the blade (cant angle 90°). Also, the power generation increases with the increase in the winglet height. Amongst the four winglet designs discussed, the design W4 with cant angle of 45° and winglet height of 4% rotor radius performs the best resulting in 20% improvement in the power generation when added to a straight blade.
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