Improvement in Savonius Wind Turbines Efficiency by Modification of Blade Designs—A Numerical Study

2019 ◽  
Vol 142 (6) ◽  
Author(s):  
Praveen Laws ◽  
Jaskaran Singh Saini ◽  
Ajit Kumar ◽  
Santanu Mitra

Abstract Savonius wind turbines are special class of vertical axis wind turbines (VAWTs). These are low-cost drag-driven turbines and are known to be inefficient. It is proposed in this study that a simple modification to the turbine blade design can yield a significant improvement in power efficiency. The performance of the new design is extensively studied on openfoam-v1812, a popular open source computational fluid dynamics (CFD) library. The flow equations coupled with equations of rotation of the turbine are solved on an overset mesh framework. This study also serves as a validation of recently released overset support in openfoam. The turbulence is incorporated by coupling Reynolds-averaged Navier–Stokes (RANS) with shear stress transport (SST) κ − ω eddy viscosity turbulence model. The turbulence parameters are set to produce a flow with the Reynolds number, Re = 4.8 × 105. To have better confidence in simulations, this study also presents a comparison of numerical flow over conventional Savonius turbine designs with the published data. It is observed that a majority of CFD analysis on wind turbine designs are performed for the fixed tip speed ratio on a traditional static mesh structure. But, in this CFD study, a wind-driven rotation of Savonius turbine is simulated on an overset dynamics approach. The results of the study are compared and discussed based on the predicted moment and power coefficients, pressure variation on the blades, flow velocity field, and wake analysis. The study indicates that the blade design presented here has a potential to increase the power efficiency of a Savonius wind turbine by 10–28%.

Author(s):  
B. P. Khozyainov

The article carries out the experimental and analytical studies of three-blade wind power installation and gives the technique for measurements of angular rate of wind turbine rotation depending on the wind speeds, the rotating moment and its power. We have made the comparison of the calculation results according to the formulas offered with the indicators of the wind turbine tests executed in natural conditions. The tests were carried out at wind speeds from 0.709 m/s to 6.427 m/s. The wind power efficiency (WPE) for ideal traditional installation is known to be 0.45. According to the analytical calculations, wind power efficiency of the wind turbine with 3-bladed and 6 wind guide screens at wind speedsfrom 0.709 to 6.427 is equal to 0.317, and in the range of speed from 0.709 to 4.5 m/s – 0.351, but the experimental coefficient is much higher. The analysis of WPE variations shows that the work with the wind guide screens at insignificant average air flow velocity during the set period of time appears to be more effective, than the work without them. If the air flow velocity increases, the wind power efficiency gradually decreases. Such a good fit between experimental data and analytical calculations is confirmed by comparison of F-test design criterion with its tabular values. In the design of wind turbines, it allows determining the wind turbine power, setting the geometrical parameters and mass of all details for their efficient performance.


Energies ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 14 (19) ◽  
pp. 6167
Author(s):  
Fang Feng ◽  
Guoqiang Tong ◽  
Yunfei Ma ◽  
Yan Li

In order to get rid of the impact of the global financial crisis and actively respond to global climate change, it has become a common choice for global economic development to develop clean energy such as wind energy, improve energy efficiency and reduce greenhouse gas emissions. With the advantages of simple structure, unnecessary facing the wind direction, and unique appearance, the vertical axis wind turbine (VAWT) attracts extensive attention in the field of small and medium wind turbines. The lift-type VAWT exhibits outstanding aerodynamic characteristics at a high tip speed ratio, while the starting characteristics are generally undesirable at a low wind speed; thus, how to improve the starting characteristics of the lift-type VAWT has always been an important issue. In this paper, a lift-drag combined starter (LDCS) suitable for lift-type VAWT was proposed to optimize the starting characteristics of lift-type VAWT. With semi-elliptical drag blades and lift blades equipped on the middle and rear part outside the starter, the structure is characterized by lift-drag combination, weakening the adverse effect of the starter with semi-elliptical drag blades alone on the output performance of the original lift-type VAWT and improving the characteristics of the lift-drag combined VAWT. The static characteristic is one of the important starting characteristics of the wind turbine. The rapid development of computational fluid dynamics has laid a solid material foundation for VAWT. Thus the static characteristics of the LDCS with different numbers of blades were investigated by conducting numerical simulation and wind tunnel tests. The results demonstrated that the static torque coefficient of LDCS increased significantly with the increased incoming wind speed. The average value of the static torque coefficient also increased significantly. This study can provide guidelines for the research of lift-drag combined wind turbines.


2021 ◽  
Vol 104 ◽  
pp. 83-88
Author(s):  
Rahmat Wahyudi ◽  
Diniar Mungil Kurniawati ◽  
Alfian Djafar

The potential of wind energy is very abundant but its utilization is still low. The effort to utilize wind energy is to utilize wind energy into electrical energy using wind turbines. Savonius wind turbines have a very simple shape and construction, are inexpensive, and can be used at low wind speeds. This research aims to determine the effect of the slot angle on the slotted blades configuration on the performance produced by Savonius wind turbines. Slot angle variations used are 5o ,10o , and 15o with slotted blades 30% at wind speeds of 2,23 m/s to 4,7 m/s using wind tunnel. The result showed that a small slot angle variation of 5o produced better wind turbine performance compared to a standard blade at low wind speeds and a low tip speed ratio.


2016 ◽  
Vol 13 (1) ◽  
pp. 27-37 ◽  
Author(s):  
Keyvan Esmaeelpour ◽  
Rouzbeh Shafaghat ◽  
Rezvan Alamian ◽  
Rasoul Bayani

The everyday growing populations all over the world and the necessity of increase in consumption of fossil energies have made the human to discover new energy resources, which are clean, cheap and renewable. Wind energy is one of the renewable energy resources. Considerable wind speed has made settling of wind turbines at sea beneficial and appealing. For this purpose, choosing the appropriate plates to set up wind turbines on the surface of sea is necessary. Regarding the installation condition, by choosing suitable geometry for floating breakwaters, offshore wind turbine can be mounted on them. Suitable geometry of breakwater for multifunctional usage could be selected with analyzing and comparing pressure, force and moment produced by incoming waves. In this article, we implement boundary element method to solve governing differential equations by assuming potential flow. On the other hand, for promoting free surface in each time step, we employed Euler-Lagrangian method. Finally, to find the appropriate geometry for installing the wind turbine on the breakwater, moment and wave profile next to the right and left side of breakwater body are calculated. Among simulated geometries, breakwater with trapezoid geometry which its larger base is placed in the water has more sustainability and it is the most suitable geometry for wind turbine installation.


Author(s):  
K. Vafiadis ◽  
H. Fintikakis ◽  
I. Zaproudis ◽  
A. Tourlidakis

In urban areas, it is preferable to use small wind turbines which may be integrated to a building in order to supply the local grid with green energy. The main drawback of using wind turbines in urban areas is that the air flow is affected by the existence of nearby buildings, which in conjunction with the variation of wind speed, wind direction and turbulence may adversely affect wind energy extraction. Moreover, the efficiency of a wind turbine is limited by the Betz limit. One of the methods developed to increase the efficiency of small wind turbines and to overcome the Betz limit is the introduction of a converging – diverging shroud around the turbine. Several researchers have studied the effect of shrouds on Horizontal Axis Wind Turbines, but relatively little research has been carried out on shroud augmented Vertical Axis Wind Turbines. This paper presents the numerical study of a shrouded Vertical Axis Wind Turbine. A wide range of test cases, were examined in order to predict the flow characteristics around the rotor, through the shroud and through the rotor – shroud arrangement using 3D Computational Fluid Dynamics simulations. The power output of the shrouded rotor has been improved by a factor greater than 2.0. The detailed flow analysis results showed that there is a significant improvement in the performance of the wind turbine.


Author(s):  
Akiyoshi Iida ◽  
Akisato Mizuno ◽  
Kyoji Kamemoto

Unsteady flow field and flow induced noise of vertical axis wind turbine are numerically investigated. The flow field is numerically calculated by the vortex method with core-spreading model. This simulation obtains aerodynamic performance and aerodynamic forces. Aerodynamic noise is also simulated by using Ffowcs Williams-Hawkings equation with compact body and low-Mach number assumptions. Tip speed of rotor blades are not so high, then the contribution of the moving sound source is smaller than that of the dipole sound source. Since the maximum power coefficient of VAWT can be obtained at lower tip-speed ratio compared to the conventional, horizontal axis wind turbines, the aerodynamic noise from vertical axis wind turbine is smaller than that of the conventional wind turbines at the same aerodynamic performance. This result indicates that the vertical axis wind turbines are useful to develop low-noise wind turbines.


2019 ◽  
Vol 142 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Yan Yan ◽  
Eldad Avital ◽  
John Williams ◽  
Jiahuan Cui

Abstract A numerical study was carried out to investigate the effects of a Gurney flap (GF) on the aerodynamics performance of the NACA 00 aerofoil and an associated three-blade rotor of a H-type Darrieus wind turbine. The flow fields around a single aerofoil and the vertical axis wind turbine (VAWT) rotor are studied using unsteady Reynolds-averaged Navier–Stokes equations (URANS). The height of GF ranges from 1% to 5% of the aerofoil chord length. The results show that the GF can increase the lift and lift-to-drag ratio of the aerofoil as associated with the generation of additional vortices near the aerofoil trailing edge. As a result, adding a GF can significantly improve the power coefficient of the VAWT at low tip speed ratio (TSR), where it typically gives low power production. The causing mechanism is discussed in detail, pointing to flow separation and dynamic stall delay.


2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Ozeh ◽  
Ashreet Mishra ◽  
Xiuling Wang

The Archimedes wind turbine boasts an innovative blade design with the potential of harvesting energy from wind with much more efficiency. The blade design utilizes both lift and drag forces, and boasts several other advantages over conventional horizontal axis and vertical axis wind turbines, which implies higher power production efficiency and a possibility of being used in urban areas with attendant low wind speed regimes for small scale power generation, being more portable. However, there exists a dearth of experimental reports on the Archimedes wind turbine besides CFD simulations, to observe and study its real-life performance and power production potential. This paper is an experimental report on the design and wind test of the Archimedes wind turbine prototype, together with calculations made to gauge its tip speed ratio, power output and energy production potential. To show the viability of the prototype, the power produced is used to charge a HTC Desire cell phone, which proves that it can be relied upon to meet the title objective of small scale power storage with a power bank. Results are thereafter compared to other published work and show relatively good agreement. Minor deviations are attributed to the challenges encountered during the fabrication process.


2021 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Abhijeet M. Malge ◽  
Prashant Maruti Pawar

Purpose Three different configurations of vertical axis wind turbines (VAWT) were fabricated by changing the storey height and their orientations. The purpose of this study is to find the effect of storey height and orientation on the performance of wind turbines. The multistory VAWT has three storeys. The first configuration had increased middle storey height, with 0–90-0 orientation of blades. Wherein the second turbine had equal storey heights. The third configuration had increased middle storey height with 0–120-240 orientation of blades. The blades were tested numerically and experimentally. Design/methodology/approach In this research work, prototypes of innovative multistory VAWT were built with different configurations and orientations. Three configurations of three-storey VAWT were fabricated by varying the height of storey of turbines. The orientations were made by keeping the storeys orthogonal to each other. Multistory VAWT was tested numerically and experimentally. ANSYS Fluent was used for computational fluid dynamic analysis of VAWT. K-epsilon model was used for numerical analysis of wind turbine. Experimentation was carried out in a wind tunnel for different tip speed ratios (TSR). Findings The three configurations of innovative multistory VAWT were tested numerically and experimentally for different TSR. It has been found that the VAWT with equal storey height had a better performance as compared to the other two configurations with increased middle storey height. The power coefficient of equal storey height VAWT was about 22%, wherein the power coefficient of turbines with reduced upper and lower storey height was between 5%–8% Research limitations/implications The research work of multi-storey VAWT is very novel and original. The findings of the research will contribute to the existing work done in the field of VAWT. This will help other researchers to have insight into the development of multistory VAWT. The effect of storey height and configuration of multi-storey VAWT is studied numerically and experimentally, which concludes that the performance of equal storey is superior as compared to other configurations. Practical implications The multi-storey concept of VAWT was developed to counter the problem of wind direction. The blades of each storey were arranged orthogonal to each other. This helped to harness wind power irrespective of the direction of the wind. This will make the VAWT more sustainable and financially viable for domestic use. Social implications The turbines are specially designed for remotely located housed in rural areas where the power grid is not yet reached. Users can install the turbine on their rooftop and harness wind power of 100 W capacity. This will help them to make their life easy. Originality/value This research work is very original and first of a kind. The multistory concept of the wind turbine was checked for the effect of storey height and orientations of blades on its performance. Different configurations and orientations of the vertical axis were designed and developed for the first time.


2013 ◽  
Vol 859 ◽  
pp. 28-32
Author(s):  
Yi Mei ◽  
Jian Jun Qu ◽  
Xiao Ya Liu

This paper presents a numerical study of a vertical axis wind rotor configuration. Below constant wind condition 8m/s, rotor power performance was investigated over variable turbine configurations. Illustrated by the simulation, increasing rotor cord to radius ratio or blade numbers will enhance the generation of vortexes and flow separation on blades, leading to the significant degradation of turbine performance. It can be conclude form the numerical analysis, a vertical axis wind turbine with high height to radius ratio applied in urban areas experienced better performance when operating in optimal tip speed ratio, with rotor cord to radius ratio between 0.2 and 0.4 and blade number of 3 or 4.


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