Setting the Design Mode

QBlade can be used to design and simulate not only horizontal axis wind turbines (HAWT) but also vertical axis wind turbines (VAWT) and even propellers (PROP). To enable a clean and simple graphical user interface, regardless of the type of rotor investigated, the user can switch between three operational modes. These are:

HAWT Rotor design and BEM analysis for horizontal axis wind turbines
VAWT Rotor design and DMS analysis for vertical axis wind turbines
PROP Propeller design and BEM analysis

The user can switch between the different modes using the Menu (see Fig. 44).

Fig. 44 Switching between QBlade design modes via the menu.

After a mode has been chosen the main toolbar is automatically updated to display the modules that belong to the chosen mode (see Fig. 45).

Fig. 45 Different modules displayed in the main toolbar for the different modes.

HAWT Mode, VAWT Mode and PROP Mode

The main differences between the three modes are the Blade Definition and the Rotor BEM. Depending on the chosen mode features in the blade design module and variables for the steady state rotor/propeller design simulations are changed. For instance when in PROP mode propeller specific variables are introduces, such as the Advance ratio or the Propeller Efficiency. Furthermore in the blade design module propeller specific optimization algorithms are introduced.