Numerical investigation of specific performance parameters of the S-ROTOR; a Savonius type turbine design

Abstract

After the energy crisis in the 1970s, studies on alternative electrical energy production processes gained more importance especially considering the possibility of a new energy crisis that may come up nowadays. Despite their low power generation, s-rotor designs used in vertical axis wind turbines are open to development due to their features, such as producing high torque and having many configurations. In this study, the optimum s-rotor design is created using the aspect ratio, overlap ratio, quarter blade gap ratio, and fin as parameters. The effective levels of each parameter were found by performing Computational Fluid Dynamic analysis. Then, using the Responds Surface Optimization method, optimum parameter levels were determined, and the optimum s-rotor design was created. The findings showed that the newly designed s-rotor provided a remarkable performance increase in high tip-speed ratios. In addition, the maximum power coefficient of the s-rotor increased from about 0.06 to 0.10, and it was determined that the aspect ratio was more effective on the power coefficient than the other parameters.