The air discharged from ventilation systems is a high potential wind resource for generating electricity in countries where wind speed is unreliable or weak, such as in Thailand. The air discharged from ventilation systems produces consistent and high-speed wind when benchmarked against natural wind. However, the limitations of conventional wind turbines are that they have negative impacts on the ventilation system and are inconvenient to install in many areas. The innovative shaftless horizontal axis wind turbine (SHWT) introduced in this article has been designed to close the gap between the wind source and the conventional wind turbines in this process. The concept design shows how it could be mounted next to sources of waste wind, requiring only a small space for installation. An open hole is provided to enable airflow to be discharged into the environment. This SHWT has high market potential for utilizing man-made wind to generate electricity from an alternative source which supports sustainable energy development. The purpose of this study is to demonstrate the concept design of a prototype SHWT used for energy recovery from the discharged air of a ventilation system. How the rotor and stator design of the SHWT optimize wind turbine performance and minimize the negative effects on the ventilation system efficiency are also addressed in this study. The performance of the SHWT is demonstrated in a lab-scale test using the type of propeller fan that is generally applied in many sectors in Thailand.The results showed that the SHWT was successful in generating electricity and produced minimal negative effects on the ventilation system's performance.The maximum power output of the prototype SHWT is 7.4 W at a rotational
Man-made or unnatural wind from the industrial exhaust air system is an alternative wind resource for countries with natural low-speed or intermittent wind such as Thailand. It has strong and consistent wind speed when compared to the natural wind, with velocity about 5 to 10 m/s at a distance of 5 cm from the exhaust air outlet. However, some negative impacts to the exhaust air system performance was observed when a conventional wind turbine was employed. The objective of this research is to feasibility study the practicality of a prototype shaftless small scale horizontal axis wind turbine (SSHWT) to generate electricity from the exhaust air of the industrial exhaust air system. Aerodynamic, blade and generator designs were addressed in this study to maximize energy output and minimize negative impacts to the performance of the original exhaust air system. The performance of SSHWT was tested with a selected industrial fan that is widely used in industrial sections. The results showed that the SSHWT could generate electricity with less negative effect to exhaust air system performance. However, it still needs further improvements caused by the voltage output is too low. By the concept design, this innovative wind turbine is compact, thus needs only small space for installation. This SSHWT has high market potential for low wind speed countries to take advantage of unnatural wind resources which are better in terms of efficiency and economy for sustainable energy development.
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