Numerical simulation of Savonius rotors used for low wind speed application

Traditionally wind energy is popularly harvested using large horizontal axis wind turbines however there performance is found to be limited for unsteady and low-speed wind flow conditions. On contrary, vertical axis wind turbines are found to be superior for low wind speed conditions, which are generally found in crowded urban areas. This paper aims to present a design and numerical analysis of a vertical axis wind turbine that can be used in small-scale urban applications like wind trees. Hence in this paper, to absorb maximum wind energy available, we have selected wind tree applications for which three types of vertical axis rotor design are numerically studied. A Computational Fluid Dynamics simulation is performed on three different geometrical configurations: Savonius helical bach rotor, simple Saonius rotor, and simple bach rotor to predict their performance. The coefficient of power, coefficient of moment, and power produced by these three rotors are evaluated. A MATLAB-based Simulink model is developed to evaluate the power produced by these three rotors and results are compared with CFD results for validation purposes. From our study, it can be observed that the helical-type Bach rotor performed better than the other two, simple Saonius rotor and simple bach rotor considered. (c) 2021 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. Selection and Peer-review under responsibility of the scientific committee of the Global Conference on Recent Advances in Sustainable Materials 2021