Influence of curtain plates on the aerodynamic performance of an elliptical bladed Savonius rotor (S-rotor)

Abstract

The S-rotor is a drag driven wind turbine, having lesser performance coefficients. Its various geometric and aerodynamic parameters have been optimized to improve its performance. Several rotor profiles and augmentation methods have also been progressed to improve its performance further. The augmentation method reduced the negative drag generated in the S-rotor. Very recently, the elliptical bladed profile has shown higher performance than the other profiles. Hence, in this study, the elliptical bladed profile has been considered along with the curtain plates augmenter before the rotor blades. The 2D unsteady numerical analysis is conducted through the SST k–ω turbulence model. The simulations are also performed for the elliptical profile without the curtain plates for direct comparison. From the 2D unsteady results, it was found that the elliptical bladed profile with curtains plates has higher aerodynamic performance (CDavg = 2.60 and CLavg = 0.65) than the elliptical profile without curtains (CDavg = 1.43 and CLavg = 0.95). Hence, there is an improvement of CDavg by 81.81% in the elliptical profile with curtain plates than the profile without the curtain plates.