Numerical study on the wake characteristics of the Savonius turbine for shallow water application in Malaysia

Abstract

Since Malaysia is a country surrounded by bodies of water, tidal energy is one of the prospects that can be explored for energy extraction potential. While there are several turbine designs and technologies that have been used for tidal energy extraction, information on the use of Vertical Axis Tidal Turbine (VATT) for shallow water applications is very limited, while the implementation of Horizontal Axis Tidal Turbine (HATT) is not suitable due to Malaysia’s ocean depth. Therefore, this paper attempts to address this gap by analyzing the flow characteristics of the VATT in the working environment of shallow water in Malaysia. The first analysis compared the wake characteristics of the Savonius turbine model against a hypothetical ‘actuator’ cylinder, which is a representation of VATT. Next, the second study analyzed the wake characteristics between static and dynamic simulations of a Savonius turbine model. The outputs from this study were validated against previous work in order to gain a better understanding of the wake characteristics of a Savonius turbine.