Savonius wind turbine

About: Savonius wind turbine is a research topic. Over the lifetime, 333 publications have been published within this topic receiving 6521 citations.

On the Performance Enhancement of the Three-Blade Savonius Wind Turbine Implementing Opening Valve

Abstract: Unacceptable environmental pollution from the fossil fuel energy sources is increasing the demands on green energy concept and developing alternative solutions and has encouraged the international community to employ clean and renewable energy sources such as wind energy. Among different types of wind turbines, Savonius vertical axis in spite of its fascinating advantages including low rotational speed and noise, self-start capability, and independency relative to wind direction has gained less attention in industry due to low energy conversion efficiency. This paper investigates the insertion of a one-way opening valve on the three-blade Savonius wind turbine to reduce generated negative torque on convex side of the blade. Position, size, opening direction, and the opening angle limitation are defined as design parameters and 17 different scenarios in five main categories based on these parameters are modeled, simulated, and analyzed. Concluding, unlimited counter-clockwise large valve in position III exhibits 14% improvement in performance, which is promising.

Performance Prediction and Validation of a Small-Capacity Twisted Savonius Wind Turbine

Abstract: In this study, an off-grid–type small wind turbine for street lighting was designed and analyzed. Its performance was predicted using a computational fluid dynamics model. The proposed wind turbine has two blades with a radius of 0.29 m and a height of 1.30 m. Ansys Fluent, a commercial computational fluid dynamics solver, was used to predict the performance, and the k-omega SST model was used as the turbulence model. The simulation result revealed a tip-speed ratio of 0.54 with a maximum power coefficient, or an aerodynamic rotor efficiency of 0.17. A wind turbine was installed at a measurement site to validate the simulation, and a performance test was used to measure the power production. To compare the simulation results obtained from the CFD simulation with the measured electrical power performance, the efficiencies of the generator and the controller were measured using a motor-generator testbed. Also, the control strategy of the controller was found from the field test and applied to the simulation results. Comparing the results of the numerical simulation with the experiment, the maximum power-production error at the same wind speed was found to be 4.32%.

Performance assessment and optimization of a helical Savonius wind turbine by modifying the Bach’s section

Abstract: In this paper, we attempted to measure the effect of Bach’s section, which presents a high-power coefficient in the standard Savonius model, on the performance of the helical Savonius wind turbine, by observing the parameters affecting turbine performance. Assessment methods based on the tip speed ratio, torque variation, flow field characterizations, and the power coefficient are performed. The present issue was stimulated using the turbulence model SST (k- ω) at 6, 8, and 10 m/s wind flow velocities via COMSOL software. Numerical simulation was validated employing previous articles. Outputs demonstrate that Bach-primary and Bach-developed wind turbine models have less flow separation at the spoke-end than the simple helical Savonius model, ultimately improving wind turbines’ total performance and reducing spoke-dynamic loads. Compared with the basic model, the Bach-developed model shows an 18.3% performance improvement in the maximum power coefficient. Bach’s primary model also offers a 12.4% increase in power production than the initial model’s best performance. Furthermore, the results indicate that changing the geometric parameters of the Bach model at high velocities (in turbulent flows) does not significantly affect improving performance.