Numerical investigation of performance of a new type of savonius turbine

TLDR: In this article, a Savonius turbine of VAWT type has been used to induce fire-whirls in laboratories, and the computational results show that the new design has a higher steady state angular velocity as well as higher coefficient of power than the conventional Savoni turbine.

Abstract: Wind energy is non-polluting and is freely available in many areas and is gaining popularity among researchers. Among wind turbines, Horizontal Axis Wind Turbines (HAWT) are more common compared to Vertical Axis Wind Turbines (VAWT) mainly because of their higher efficiency. However, Savonius turbine of VAWT type has many advantages over others such as simplicity in construction, lower cost of production, constancy of the output power regardless of the wind direction, and good starting torque at low wind speed. It is conceived that the efficiency of the Savonius turbines can be increased using industrial wasted heat primarily due to their structural similarity with the split chambers which are often used to induce fire-whirls in laboratories. This work deals with a basic design of such combined configuration and compares its efficiency with a conventional Savonius turbine. The computational results show that the new design has a higher steady state angular velocity as well as higher coefficient of power than the conventional Savonius turbine.