Penn State Wind Energy Club

The Pennsylvania State University Wind Energy Club has competed in the national Collegiate Wind Competition (CWC) held by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) for over seven years. The competition’s rules vary each year, but the general concept is to design a working wind turbine on a smaller scale meant for a specific region somewhere in the world. For the 2020-21 competition, the location was an area in Colorado.

After a recommendation from an aerospace professor at Penn State, I joined the club in fall 2020 as a member of the aero sub-team. In addition, I opted to participate in research credit which included background research on our past reports and wind turbine mechanics along with a major project. My task was to create a new wind turbine blade in SolidWorks compatible with the new airfoil we chose. In previous years, the same wing had been used with only minor variations in the material, so no one on the team knew how to create a new blade in SolidWorks. To start the process, our aerospace sub-team tested over 100 different airfoils in XFoil and XTurb to compare lift and drag coefficients. After creating graphs from the data, we selected our optimal airfoil. We then created an Excel sheet which contained all the data I needed to complete the SolidWorks model (e.g., the different scales of the airfoils along the blade and the pitch angles). To have the most accurate wing, I added 52 variations of our airfoil into the SolidWorks model to then be lofted together to form Figure 1. Another member of our team took this model and made the longer end fit to our blade for more accurate strength tests shown in Figure 2. At the virtual competition over summer 2021, the judges chose our Penn State team as the 1st place winners out of all the competing schools in the nation.

Figure 1. Blade Model in SolidWorks

Figure 2. Blade Model Stress Analysis in SolidWorks

I will be continuing my contributions to the team this year as the Treasurer of the club.

Figure 3. Josh Bannon (left, Aero Team Lead) and Allison Karp (right, Treasurer) at Involvement Fair 2021

Figure 4 illustrates the final prototype model used for wind tunnel testing for the competition.

Figure 4. 2021 Wind Turbine Design in Penn State's Wind Tunnel

Figure 5. Initial Blades Printed Incorrectly and with a too Flexible Material

It is shown in Figure 5 that the blades were printed incorrectly at this company with the triangle, zig-zag shape. They also turned out to be very durable and flexible which is not desired - we wanted them stiff to generate the most power. Because of limited time, these blades were still tested for the wind tunnel and stress testing. They proved to be stronger than our SolidWorks model predicted in Figure 2.

Figure 6. The New Blades Reprinted with Different Material

The blades shown in Figure 6 are printed with a new material that is stiffer than the Nylon 12 in Figure 5. These blades will be used for the 2021-2022 competition for preliminary testing.