Title: Numerical simulation of two-bladed Savonius water turbine with deflector

Authors: Mithinga Basumatary; Agnimitra Biswas

Addresses: Department of Mechanical Engineering, National Institute of Technology Silchar, Pin Code: 788 010, Assam, India ' Department of Mechanical Engineering, National Institute of Technology Silchar, Pin Code: 788 010, Assam, India

Abstract: The objective of the present study is to numerically analyse the performance of two bladed Savonius water turbine with deflector and to optimise the position of the deflector through flow physics and power curves studies at five different free stream water velocities from 0.3 m/s to 1.5 m/s. The computational models of the two bladed Savonius water turbine and the same with deflector are prepared and the numerical results are validated with the experimental results. It is observed that the deflector position of 101° with respect to the free-stream direction is the optimum position yielding maximum performance of the turbine. The maximum coefficient of power (C_p) obtained in this case is 0.54 at a free stream velocity 0.9 m/s and tip speed ratio 0.578. Moreover, the static and dynamic performances of the modified turbine are better than the simple two bladed Savonius water turbine.

Keywords: CFD; computational fluid dynamics; simulation; Savonius water turbines; optimisation; deflector position; numerical simulation; deflectors; free stream velocity; tip speed ratio; performance evaluation; fluid flow; power curves.

DOI: 10.1504/IJRET.2016.080115

International Journal of Renewable Energy Technology, 2016 Vol.7 No.4, pp.383 - 402

Received: 23 Jun 2015
Accepted: 20 Jul 2016
Published online: 02 Nov 2016 *

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