The Design of a Wind Tunnel Testing System for Model Airborne Wind Energy Systems
Date
2020
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Swarthmore College. Dept. of Engineering
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en
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Abstract
In the last decades there has been rapid growth of renewable energy technologies in lout
of societies increased energy demand. Among these technologies, wind generators are among the
most widely used type of energy harvester, in particular large wind turbines. However, wind
turbines require large areas of land and extensive support structures. For this reason, there has
been substantial focus on the development of Airborne Wind Energy Systems (AWES) due to
their high potential of power capacity per unit of land area. My E90 project focuses on a
particular subset of AWES that utilizes kites to drive a generator on the ground. The goal of this
project is to design a testing system in the Singer wind tunnel to measure the force, potential
energy generated, and flight dynamics of various kite designs. In addition to the system design,
characterization of the flow velocity and uniformity of the Singer wind tunnel is included in this
report. In this work, I provide an overview of the system design and its sub-components and lay
out a framework for fabrication and implementation.