Building Horizontal-Axis Wind Turbine: Testing Blade Designs without Generator

[alexjesse]

Good day!

I was thinking of building a horizontal-axis wind turbine and testing various blade designs but i can't afford a generator to test the power output of each variation.

Is it sensible/possible to get the output without a generator? Can equations in finding torque be used?

Thank you.

 

[DScheuf]

If you want this HAWT to be small, I would recommend getting a small 5-12V DC motor to couple to the prop. You can then measure voltage and current with a multimeter.

Here's a project I did for school: http://imgur.com/a/ClNBl#.

 

[Jobrag]

It is very difficult to measure the torque of a rotating shaft. How are you proposing to load your machine? If you go down the generator path you'll still need to provide an electric load, if you are looking at some kind of dynamometer you'll find them very expensive.