<p>The world's population is going to surge past 9.5 billion by 2050. In order to cater to the energy demand of the ever-increasing posterity, scientists across the globe are working to harness power from renewable sources of energy. In pursuit of studying alternative energy sources, Savonius-style turbines have gained increased attention in the past few years. Low installation and operational costs coupled with great starting abilities render Savonius-style turbines a highly studied domain for harnessing power in both industrial and domestic areas. Savonius-style turbines are generally drag-based. However, lift forces also play a significant role in power generation using Savonius-style rotors. In this study, the performance of Savonius-style rotors has been studied in relation to extracting power from ultra-low headwater bodies, having low water velocities. However, considering the low operational efficiency, design aspects of these turbines need to be improved. In this study, experimental investigations have been carried out using three designs of Savonius style turbines. These are classical rotors, semi-elliptical rotors and Benesh-type rotors. The study has been carried out using an experimental setup that could produce a low head of &lt; 1 m and water flow velocity within a range of 0.2 m/s to 0.8 m/s; the velocities at which perennial rivers flow. This study presents the comparison and analysis of the coefficients of power and torque measurements at various tip speed ratios. To analyze the effect of drag and lift forces, coefficients of torque and lift have been studied as a function of azimuthal angles at water flow speed varying between 0.2 m/s to 0.75 m/s. The study shows that at a water velocity of 0.6 m/s, optimal performance can be achieved from all the types of rotors studied here. Out of the three profiles studied here, elliptical-shaped rotors generated a coefficient of power of 0.237 and a coefficient of torque of 0.538, when the water head was set at 0.8 m and flow velocity of 0.6 m/s. Experimental data reported here exhibit a gain of 23 % using an elliptical-shaped rotor over classical and Benesh-type design.&nbsp;</p><p>Keywords:&nbsp; Hydrodynamic flow, Savonius-style wind turbine, Semi-elliptical type wind turbine, Power efficiency.</p>

Efficiency Analysis of Savonius-Style Wind Turbine in Hydrodynamic Flow Field

Paper Proceedings: https://asmedigitalcollection.asme.org/GTINDIA/GTINDIA2021/volume/85536

ASME 2021 Gas Turbine India Conference (GTINDIA2021)

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