American Journal of Mechanical Engineering, 2015, Vol. 3, No. 3A, 22-26 Available online at http://pubs.sciepub.com/ajme/3/3A/4 © Science and Education Publishing DOI:10.12691/ajme-3-3A-4 Experimental Validation of Numerical Results of a Göttingen 188 Airfoil Wind Turbine for a 40° Blade Angle Zied Driss 1,* , Tarek Chelbi 1 , Ahmed Kaffel 2 , Mohamed Salah Abid 1 1 Laboratory of Electro-Mechanic Systems (LASEM), National School of Engineers of Sfax (ENIS), University of Sfax (US), B.P. 1173, Road Soukra, km 3.5, 3038 Sfax, TUNISIA 2 University of Maryland College Park, MD 20742, USA *Corresponding author: Zied.Driss@enis.rnu.tn Received May 20, 2015; Revised June 22, 2015; Accepted July 14, 2015 Abstract In this paper, an experimental validation of numerical results of a Göttingen 188 airfoil wind turbine has been achieved. For thus, a detailed description of the used wind tunnel and the various manipulations performed with the mentioned turbine are presented. The experimental setup was developed to estimate the velocity profiles and the static torque for a wedging angle of the blade equal to β=40°. In these conditions, we have proved that the static torque presents the maximum value compared with the others tested wedging angles. Our goal is to characterize the aerodynamic structure and to validate the numerical results developed using Computational Fluid Dynamic (CFD) code. Keywords: experimental validation, wind tunnel, wind turbine, Göttingen 188 airfoil, wedging angle Cite This Article: Zied Driss, Tarek Chelbi, Ahmed Kaffel, and Mohamed Salah Abid, “Experimental Validation of Numerical Results of a Göttingen 188 Airfoil Wind Turbine for a 40° Blade Angle.” American Journal of Mechanical Engineering, vol. 3, no. 3A (2015): 22-26. doi: 10.12691/ajme-3-3A-4. 1. Introduction Facing economic problems due to large increases in fuel prices, the world has moved towards the exploitation of new and renewable energies. These are inexhaustible and inexpensive compared to the energies of noble viewpoint of electric power generation. The steps to prepare a truly sustainable development are to increase the share of renewable resources for electricity generation. In this context, the production of electricity by wind turbines is playing a major role. In this context, a lot of scientists have experimentally and numerically examined the effects of such parameter design as blades number and airfoil profile. For example, Leifsson and Koziel [1] presented a transonic airfoil design optimization methodology that uses a computationally cheap, physics-based low-fidelity model to construct a surrogate of an accurate but CPU intensive high-fidelity model. Strinath and Mittal [2] utilized a continuous adjoint method for the design of airfoils in unsteady viscous flows for α=4° and Re=104. A stabilized finite element method based on the SUPG/PSPG stabilizations has been used to solve, both, flow and adjoint equations. The results of an experimental investigation of the heat transfer coefficients for forced convection from a NACA-63421 airfoil are presented by Wang et al. [3]. Wind tunnel measurements of convection coefficients are obtained for air flow temperatures from 20 to 30°C. The experimental data are correlated with respect to the Nusselt and Reynolds numbers. Henriques et al. [4] showed that a pressure-load inverse design method was successfully applied to the design of a high-loaded airfoil for application in a small wind turbine for urban environment. Predescu et al. [5] described the experimental work in a wind tunnel on wind turbine rotors having different number of blades and different twist angle. The aim of the work is to study the effects of the number of blades, the blade tip angles and twist angle of the blades on the power coefficient of the rotor. Also, the experiments evaluate to what extent the power coefficient of the turbine rotor depends on the operating wind speed. Sicot et al. [6] investigated the aerodynamic properties of a wind turbine airfoil. Particularly, they studied the influence of the inflow turbulence level (from 4.5% to 12%) and of the rotation on the stall mechanisms in the blade. A local approach was used to study the influence of these parameters on the separation point position on the suction surface of the airfoil, through simultaneous surface pressure measurements around the airfoil. Schreck and Robinson [7] showed that wind turbine blade aerodynamic phenomena can be broadly categorized according to the operating state of the machine, and two particular aerodynamic phenomena assume crucial importance. At zero and low rotor yaw angles, rotational augmentation determines blade aerodynamic response. At moderate to high yaw angles, dynamic stall dominates blade aerodynamic. Hu et al. [8] showed that Coriolis and centrifugal forces play important roles in 3D stall-delay. At the root area of the blade, where the high angles of