A modified novel blade configuration proposal for a more efficient VAWT using CFD tools

Abstract

It is a priority to generate affordable and reliable energy with higher participation of renewable energy technologies into the global energy mix to provide efficient sustainable energy services for everyone, highlighting the need to focus on vulnerable communities in developing countries with limited or no access to electricity. Vertical axis wind turbines (VAWT) are widely used for renewable electricity generation. In that order, Savonius rotor, being a VAWT, is commonly used because of its numerous advantages for small scale generation. Thus, wind energy research on a modified Savonius rotor might be a feasible solution for powering vulnerable communities with no access to the grid. Hence, this paper shows how to improve the performance of a conventional Savonius blade by introducing a novel configuration without expensive and complex modifications on the geometry. For that purpose, a Cm and Cp coefficients comparison between 13 proposed scenarios against the conventional configuration to define a novel one, with better performance is carried out through a 2D computational fluid dynamic analysis by using Ansys Fluent 18.0. The SST k-ω model is selected as the turbulent model. As a result, a higher performance Savonius novel rotor configuration is identified with 17.81% improvement over the conventional configuration.