Investigation of 3D printed Savonius rotor performance

In this study increasing the performance of Conventional Savonius wind rotor has been investigated by a 3D (three dimensional) printer which is one of the rapid prototyping techniques. For this purpose, some design changes have been introduced to increase the performance of conventional Savonius wind rotor. Here, 3D digital designing of Savonius wind rotors have been easily manufactured tangible as a physical model by a 3D printer. Experimental data concerning produced Savonius wind rotors have been acquired by using a wind tunnel. Some numerical data have been obtained from the CFD (Computational Fluid Dynamics) analysis carried out under the same conditions. The effects of the additional blade end design have been examined to obtain more torque increase on improved classical Savonius wind rotor. Furthermore, by means of introducing straight blade, the effects of the flow compression inside the blade have been reduced and rotor performance increased. Based on such optimizations, optimum additional design parameters have been designated as that (1/r) ratio is 0.3, (s/r) is 1, and (alpha) additional straight blade angle is 135 degrees. It has been determined that power coefficient is increased at a ratio of around 20% together with all these design changes. (C) 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.